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Turning Red 2022
*sticks Toronto content into veins* Ahhhh yeaaaaaa. SkyDome, baby.
It's almost as if you rip away the creative control away from the group of withered white guys who started Pixar but have refused to let go of the reigns for a decade and a half too long, you'll get some vibrant, creative and moving work!
More of this, please.
*checks credits*
Fuck, the director of this is two years younger than me.
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Therapy Dogs 2022
Narrative/documentary hybrid DJ set for high school malaise. Quickly reaches a hypnotic endless scrolling groove of shitty parties, masculinity contests, and campus boredom set to melancholy tunes you can dance to. The most compelling thread is the recurring Kevin, a talented creative with dreams of moving to LA but little belief in actually getting out there and making it. I loved Kevin’s musical interlude where he rehearses a song with him on vocals and guitar and a fellow musician on…
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Mangoshake 2018
I admire Jarmusch, but never truly enjoyed one of his films. I've never really enjoyed Mumblecore, but appreciate the effort. Many many years ago, I watched Slacker, and didn't really like it. I thought Mangoshake was going to be something like something like that. But Mangoshake is a something different masterpiece.
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Mangoshake 2018
An anti-Coming of Age film that’s steeped in the clichés of Coming of Age films and is as outraged by their inanities as it is unwilling to let them go. This is the apex of “It’s our last summer after high school, what do we do with it? Let’s make a movie!” filmmaking. It’s ramshackle in every way a movie can be – shaky camerawork, often hard to follow plot, too many characters to follow, dialogue that’s either inaudibly quiet…
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Dear Evan Hansen 2021
I think this might have been the single most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had watching a movie. I was sort of expecting this movie to be of the “so bad it’s good, ha ha you can laugh at this” variety but instead this movie just brought me a real sense of despair.
The entire ordeal kind of reminded me of the movie Stand By Me. You know, like how the kids are all so excited to see a dead body like…
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Dear Evan Hansen 2021
probably the most remarkable thing about this film is that you really never get used to the fact that he looks like that. even in the late moments of this 137 minute film i was still jolted by occasional cuts to ben platt's puffy, doughy visage, newly horrified by his inland empire-esque facial contortions and body language that has been seen in cinema only once before: in f.w. murnau's expressionist classic nosferatu. his exaggerated hunch, hysterically twitchy hands, and latex-smooth…
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Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time 2021
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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Mangoshake 2018
haven't been this excited about an emerging filmmaker in so long. as others have said, this feels like the start of something new: talking purely form, this is cut together with so much vigour & digital invention, and alongside don't let the riverbeast get you!, it’s distilled in me a passion to direct that i haven't felt in years. by criticising the coming of age film and depicting transitional angst in chiu's very distinctive (loving, goofy, and subversive) way, out emerges…
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Mangoshake 2018
The coming-of-age film without the pre-packaged nostalgia, filtered through the lens of The Vine Generation.
A wild ride of a film.
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Mangoshake 2018
Finally got around to watching this on blu-ray on a lazy summer day when a gig I thought I had was canceled. The last time I saw this was an unmixed cut at a festival, so I only understood half of what was going on. I liked it then, but I loved it this time.
Almost feels like a nail in the coffin of 2010s “youth” cinema, a bullet fired through the head of canonical “Bildungsromans” from a sniper rifle…
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