Matt Goldberg

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Atlanta, GA

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Favorite films

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Treasure Planet 2002

★½ Rewatched 27 Sep 2023

I remember in the lead-up to this film, I was so excited because it was a cool premise (space pirates!) and they would blend 2D and 3D animation. I also remembering being pretty disappointed. Twenty years time has not improved the movie. Setting aside a lot of the CGI has aged poorly, the film fails with its core characters--Jim and Silver. Their designs are bad, and I'm not exactly sure what Jim's arc is supposed to be. Is he a…
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar 2023

★★★★ Watched 27 Sep 2023

Not a bad year for ‘ol Wes. His craftsmanship only seems to get sharper, and he continues to work with perfect collaborators both in front of and behind the camera. It’s a shame that this will likely get buried on Netflix, but then again, how many studios are paying for short films?

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023

★½ Watched 13 Feb 2023 15

Marvel has lost it. Films like Doctor Strange and Iron Man 2 now look like bastions of competence next to stuff like this because as weak as those films are, they still try to have a character arc for their protagonist where the adventure changes his outlook. Everyone in this movie is the same at the end as they are in the beginning. There’s not an ounce of character development or even a challenge to a character’s personality. It is…
Midsommar 2019

★½ Watched 24 Jun 2019 11

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Between this and Hereditary, I’m confident saying I’m not an Ari Aster fan. On a technical level, his skill is undeniable, but it lacks artistry. Everything he does is painfully self-aware and there’s no empathy for his characters. The deaths of family members are exploited and crassly used for shock value with minimal reckoning. He’s made two movies that are ostensibly about unimaginable grief, and yet they both get bogged down in mythological bullshit. By the end, you’re no longer focused on the protagonist because of some threatening cultish other. Spare me.