The scale is incredible! Puts most recent blockbusters to shame - movies don't look this good anymore! Movies also don't feel this big very often. The battle scenes literally explode in IMAX, Scott paints with a large brush, but the isolated bits of gore are like garnishes on the war platter! I won't soon forget the black and white color palette of the snow battle! Or the midnight tussle of the port siege, where we see bodies (mostly in silhouette)…
"For I know I will be homesick for you even in heaven."
An outright gorgeous movie! So much red and green; the warmth and joy of Christmas is suggested even in scenes out of season! Beautiful sets and costumes. A triumph of emotion and casting. Winona Ryder was born to play Jo, Kirsten Dunst is the best Amy and Susan Sarandon is so wonderful as Marmee. I really like the emphasis on Marmee's mothering in this version, as she bestows…
As someone who experienced physical and emotional incest at a young age, this movie is rather painful for me to navigate. I relate very intensely to the character Joe, and I recognize the arrested development and the shouldering of everyone's problems but his own. As he comes to realize hey maybe it was never ok to be subjected to that shit at such a young age. Only to find yourself a prisoner in your own life 20 years later.
May…
A Valiant effort for such a small budget. The story is told partially through flashbacks, a year before Greta Gerwig would do the same! This modern day retelling of a classic story suffers from a quaintness not entirely indicative of the era it takes place in (during the time of social media and the 24-hour news cycle nonetheless). Some aspects of the story just don't translate very well to the 21st century setting. The cast is hit or miss. And…
Interesting take on the meta-slasher. The structure is borrowed from Scream (a couple is killed at the beginning, the school reacts, the final girl is attacked, etc) but Cherry Falls is zoomed into the 'sex = death' aspect of slasher films, where "sluts die, virgins live." But this time, our sexy queer-coded killer is attacking virgins in some kind of flip of the script. And it's presented as representing societal pressures on young people to lose their virginity. And if…
Probably my favorite movie of the year! Just heartbreaking in a very real way! I would write more, but the movie hit a little too close to home and the experience has left me emotionally raw.
A Black Friday stampede representative of mass death. American consumer culture, sanctioned chaos and misery symbolized through waffle irons and pilgrim masks. Every year, there's a new Thanksgiving, an anniversary of tragedy; a reminder of the crimes committed. Those perceived perpetrators of the event are hunted down for their 'original sin.'
Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday to fit the revenge-slasher mold because it is already a tainted holiday for indigenous people. And white people already contain a certain ambivalence about…
The streets belong to the young.
Exceptional rock n roll fable with working class sensibilities - combining 50s rockabilly with 80s grit. And with themes of finding happiness in a cruel money-fueled world, I was instantly swept off my feet by Streets of Fire!! It's badass and romantic, featuring a crazy cast that includes Rick Moranis and fucking Willem Dafoe giving 50s bully as the leader of a motorcycle gang. It's as much a fairy tale as the American Dream…
Hauntingly beautiful on the big screen. Images you can melt into. The only cyberpunk world that rivals Blade Runner's, with a story about a society losing its collective identity, memories as ghosts and bodies as shells in a technocratic dystopia. There's a real eeriness to some of the imagery - especially in the Persona-esque shots of Major and the Puppet Master near the end. Gorgeous doll-like faces, vibrant empty eyes. Technology aligned with colonialist conquest- your body is the final frontier, your brain is hacked.
Obviously better than the 2003 film. The Kills are a step up. It certainly takes itself less seriously and it's way more stupid - two things i like from slasher sequels, prequels and remakes. R. Lee Ermey is much funnier in his role as Sherriff Hoyt and not just menacing and edgy. The mean-spirited humor is less obvious, though the film does open with awful edgy bits setting up the Hewitt family in a very direct way. Ermey was a…
The Lion King 1 1/2 to Baz Luhrmann's Elvis lol. Contrasting the kaleidoscopic montages of that film is this film's startling emptiness as the alternative narrative. Lucid montages of decorations and furniture, punctuating scenes of infatuation, scenes of abuse. It demystifies the icon yet demonstrates why Priscilla's book was the inspiration behind "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode. As a lover of older men, even at a young age, the movie was painful to observe. I applaud Sofia Coppola for capturing…