Tag: period piece
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I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
I just saw I Saw the TV Glow and it was honestly fantastic. What starts as a typical if somewhat atmospheric YA drama about disaffected high schoolers in the ‘90s bonding over a television show becomes stranger and spookier until it’s an almost David Lynch-ian mystery, with resonant themes of fear and self-loathing. When I…
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The Dead Don’t Hurt (2024)
I just saw The Dead Don’t Hurt, a western written, directed, composed by, and starring Viggo Mortensen, and it was the dullest, most poorly constructed piece of loose grouting that I’ve seen in a cinema for… a while. 0/4. I rarely give a film a zero score because my rule normally is that if I…
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Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
I just saw Love Lies Bleeding and it was really good. A lesbian romance crossed with a crime drama and set in the 1980s, it stars Kristen Stewart as a mulleted gym clerk, Lou, whose father, Lou Sr (Ed Harris), is a dangerous criminal in the Nevada desert. One day a young woman called Jackie…
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The Zone of Interest (2023)
The first thing I noticed about The Zone of Interest was its certificate. 12A. The equivalent, I suppose, of PG-13 in America. Most adult-oriented films about the Holocaust (or any genocide) would presumably earn a higher rating given what it needs to depict. Schindler’s List (1993), which I was shown in school, is a 15. …
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Napoleon (2023)
I just saw Napoleon and now I’m being chased by men with butterfly nets. Also, the film was good. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Joaquin Phoenix, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to based on its trailer, with its “moody” pop and corny graphics (“LOVER… TYRANT…”). The actual…
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Godzilla Minus One (2023)
I just saw Godzilla Minus One and it was good. Easily the best kaiju movie that I’ve seen in a long time; mostly the ones I’ve seen have been American takes on the genre. The one I grew up with was the 1998 Roland Emmerich disaster porno, Godzilla, which I mainly remember for all the…
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Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
I just saw Killers of the Flower Moon and it was really good. I was trepidatious about seeing it because it’s three and a half hours long, but having booked myself a seat with a lot of legroom and popped out for a comfort break midway through, I didn’t feel the length at all. (Sidenote:…
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The Exorcist (1973): 50th anniversary Director’s Cut
By way of what I suppose is full disclosure, The Exorcist happens to be my favourite film. I’ve seen it on the big screen twice now, the first time two or three years ago and latterly for its 50th anniversary. It remains an utterly compelling motion picture, about faith and guilt and love, told through…
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Oppenheimer (2023)
Now that it’s been released, Oppenheimer feels like such a natural project for Christopher Nolan, a writer/director whose works have always been concerned with concepts. He approaches his stories rather like a theoretical physicist, starting with a baseline of plot and twisting it back and forth across many permutations, dissecting time travel, space exploration, unconscious…
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
I just saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and it was an enjoyable if somewhat forgettable coda to the franchise. It’s been getting the usual sneering reviews from critics who must think it a sign of their cine-literacy to hold their noses when passing pulp trash, but it’s a watchable piece of hokum…
I Just Saw 