Star ratings are for categorical purposes only. The written review is the sum and extent of my recorded opinion.
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Barry Lyndon 1975
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I didn't know what to make of Barry Lyndon when I first watched it a week ago. I still don't. There are shots which defy belief. The closest analogue to the Hogarthian Barry slumped low in a chair is something like the rendering of a modern triple A videogame. In both cases, something which looks like light is reproduced in exacting detail, but surely it can't be - it is too perfect, it doesn't flash the eyes, the rest of…
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The French Connection 1971
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
This is my second time watching The French Connection. Rest in peace Gene Hackman.
One of the most underrated sequences of Friedkin's masterpiece is the very first. Doyle and Russo chase a black man into wasted concrete and beat him remorselessly. These sort of dessicated post-human spaces are all over The French Connection - the most famous, of course, being the daedalian brownfield site which Doyle fumbles into at the end. The opening mirrors the close - in both cases,…
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Oppenheimer 2023
Oppenheimer represents something of a departure for Nolan from his usual action-thriller initiatives, but one that pays off. Oppenheimer is the perfect vessel for Nolan's frequent forays into existential grandiosity, which despite his perennially mediocre dialogue (bar the odd good line) always at the very least represent a filmmaker genuinely interested in exploring important themes and ideas. Here, the distinction that runs through Nolan's epic nuclear tragedy is one between Oppenheimer as a figure of destiny, a man who helped…
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Paris, Texas 1984
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Paris, Texas is the third Wim Wenders film I've watched. It is difficult to understand a director until you have watched at least three of their films, I think. Wings of Desire was my first. I watched it in the cinema (alone). Films almost always leave me feeling cold and vague afterwards, no matter their quality, and that was no exception, but I was very impressed with it regardless. More than anything, I got a sense of what it might…
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