One of the best of the year so far, really love the intimate framing and lighting that creates a harsh but sensual atmosphere. Performances all around are great, but Franz Rogowski gives my favorite of the year. I also really love the ways the story weaves the timelines, rather than throwing you into a new timeline there are really clever ways to slowly transition them and allow the character interactions to really clue you into the time.
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Lightyear 2022
Theres a really poignant sequence sandwiched in between the absolute dryest, lifeless sci fi spectacle that makes up most of this film. One that hints at a much more emotionally impactful and thematically interesting story. But this stirring moment leaves as quickly as it arrives, only to make way for embarrassingly dense exposition dumps and some of the flattest characterizations to ever come out of a Pixar film. But that moment of emotion makes the rest of the flatness of…
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The Black Phone 2021
Went into this completely blind but its a pretty solid thriller. The child actors are kind of inconsistent, there's a side character that's straight-up cartoonish and has probably the most inappropriate Pink Floyd needle drop ever, but the main actor is pretty good where it counts and Ethan Hawke is obviously great. The note it ends on kind of undermines some of it for me but this was pretty engaging all the way through.
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It's a Summer Film! 2020
Very biased with this because I love stories about kids trying to make a movie but I absolutely adored this. There's kind of an odd genre twist near the middle that didn't entirely work but it does add this really genuine anxiety about what films might be like a few decades from now. But this really was lovely, and there's such a sincerity in the writing and acting that just made it work wonders. This would also pair really well with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
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Vortex 2021
Easily my favorite Noe film, it's interesting how this is much a more subdue film for him but it still has his sensibility of a film that seems to overwhelm you with dread. But rather than get that through constant sensory overload and extreme content, he does so here with a surprising amount of empathy and patience. Everyone is great in this but Françoise Lebrun is absolutely heartbreaking and able to convey so much just with her face and very little dialogue. It's a challenging watch but there's a lot of sincerity behind it, even if it feels like an endurance test at times.
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Mad God 2021
Starts off insanely strong but slowly loses steam the more it goes on. Feel like it has a bit of a scene-to-scene editing issue, lots of simple story threads that feel like they go nowhere which wouldn't be an issue if this was just a film you were watching for the vibes which to some extent it is, but I would have actually liked more time for some stories in this. But on a purely technical, visual level there will probably not a film this year that looks as striking as this does.
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