Recent reviews

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  Frances Ha 2012

  ★★ Watched 25 Apr 2022

  Edit: actually I change my mind I think I was just jealous of her free spirited energy 

  
  it's possible that i am disposed to hate this movie given how much it reminds me of personality traits i constantly encountered and disliked at my liberal arts college. to that extent, it succeeds at capturing its subject matter. while i enjoyed much of the visual style, and especially the sense of time the film evokes, i fail to see how certain narrative…

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  Three Colours: Blue 1993

  ★★★½ Watched 20 Apr 2022

  wow! id heard a lot about kieslowski but this was not at all what id expected from his famed trilogy. it goes without saying but the colors are amazing. sometimes we'd get the blue saturation from a light, a prop, an outfit, or glass reflection. i think the colors help to make some of the more creative transitions really pop. its also apparent that kieslowski is a visionary. a favorite sequence of mine occurs near the beginning of the film.…

Popular reviews

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  Cure 1997

  ★★★★ Watched 09 Apr 2022

  incredible movie. visually, it is a masterclass in lighting. the scene where the detective meets the villain in the basement of the hospital is basically perfect. the composition and choreography of that sequence gave me goosebumps. every shot is incredibly detailed and merits close attention. i also loved the minimalist sound design. narratively, the film is no slouch either. the main antagonist is delightfully enigmatic. he is somehow both devastatingly hollow and penetratingly deep at the same time. two themes…

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  Orpheus 1950

  ★★ Watched 29 Mar 2022

  this is a hard film to evaluate. the effects are certainly impressive for the time (with the exception of the laughably weird rear projection scenes). but the narrative is full of fat that ought to have been cut. for example, the subplot where Orpheus is suspected of murder? it goes nowhere. the actions of Death are totally unmotivated, leaving us clueless as to why any of this drama was necessary. it's also not clear to me what role the classical…

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