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Kinds of Kindness 2024
I don't know why I am captivated by Lathinos so much, except that his characters capture so well two defining passions (the desire to be loved and the desire to be a rule follower), while his filmmaking embodies a third (the desire to see and know). A magnificent, disturbing Pandora's Box of oddly sympathetic, inhuman tragedies.
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I'm Not There 2007
Another film I have no objectivity about.
It starts out almost insultingly simple. A black kid who wants to be Woodie Guthrie and yet evade a too-threatening world, haunted by his political auntie. A young folk singer who wants to Make a Difference. A frustrated film sell-out, dwarfed by his celebrity. It feels true, but we've seen it all before, and it's all pretty broad.
Then Blanchett shows up. And suddenly the electrifying wit, the addiction, the shame and fear…
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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982
There are some works of art that, like Aslan, grow bigger as you do, unfolding to embrace the trials, thoughts, hopes, and disappointments of adulthood. There are also some works that you outgrow, that you come back to and think, "I see why this meant so much to me, but it's smaller than I remember."
And then there is E.T. Five minutes into the movie, and I'm 8 years old again: confused, socially isolated, yearning to be kind, aware--so aware--of…
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Incendies 2010
What an incredible collaboration. What a disturbing piece of high-modernist mythmaking.
This felt almost like two films to me. The first half is a masterclass in narrative clarity, which extends quite notably to sets and costumes. The cultural and political stakes of the Lebanese Civil War are set with admirable clarity. What would be bland signifiers in other films--so and so wears a cross, so and so a head-scarf--are instead given remarkable nuance and historical specificity. You could watch much…
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