a goddamn masterpiece about how fucking arduous and painful it is to do the right thing. a film that knows that making the right choice doesn’t happen through one ecstatic moment of crisis, but rather from the process of making countless right choices, and avoiding every cop out of despair or compromise. and importantly, a film about a man who knows how hard all this is, who has tried and failed in the past to live righteously and has lost…
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Cries and Whispers 1972
When I was ten, I was shut inside the mortuary at [a local hospital]… The outer door had slammed shut and I was alone with the dead… or those in suspended animation. At any moment, one of them might rise up and grab hold of me.- Ingmar Bergman in the Magic Lantern (1987)
the summer before i went into high school, i took a three week class in existentialism, which happened to be where i was first introduced to bergman,…
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The Social Network 2010
with the hindsight of the last decade and a half, this is perhaps too humanizing a portrayal of zuck, but as it exists on its own terms, absolutely incredible
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Black Orpheus 1959
an undeniably visually beautiful work with some wonderful music, and one that has substantial documentary value for its location filming. and yet, these virtues are unfortunately tarnished by the perspective of its director and writers that lends everything an uncomfortable air of exoticizing black brazilians. while i did feel myself getting somewhat won over by the more fully fantastical elements as the broad strokes of characterization felt more appropriate for this sort of genre, there frankly just wasn’t enough of it for me to feel especially positive about the film on the whole
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White Heat 1949
my god, what an absolutely perfect movie. it’s always exciting to be watching an older movie and recognize that some element therein is responsible for ripples in the film landscape that are still being felt today, and cagney’s performance of manic criminality is one of the clearest examples of that phenomenon.
barring the one slightly clumsy moment of psychological exposition delivered by the treasury agent, which i’m more than willing to forgive given the way it heightens so many later…
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