Fraser’s performance points to a welcome career resurgence if other directors pick up on how his naturally expressive demeanor is especially suited to melodramatic roles. However, while I, on net, liked it, The Whale felt way too stage-y in both script and direction for me to fully embrace Charlie’s arc. Stage-y not only in how the actors and camera the space to the point that whatever secondary property of 'claustrophobic' that arises from its cinematography is better suited to its…
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After Yang 2021
Kogonada isn’t so much a director who outright fumbles his interesting premises, it’s more that he seems to mishandle them. That his feature-length efforts seriously lose steam as they try to land some great starts is what I’m getting at. Like Columbus, which become less interesting and more predictable with its runtime, so too does After Yang once you recognize that the film doesn’t move much further past its ostensibly subtle but actually obvious theme on the humanity of machines…
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New Jerusalem 2011
One of the most beautifully sincere scenes in cinema that left me on the verge of tears—the one of all the men swimming beneath the bridge—is embedded within this tender, bravely patient film that, as a friend on Letterboxd aptly puts it, "critiques religion without antagonizing it." Both leads deliver incredible performances that animate their idiosyncrasies with affecting sympathy, Colm O'Leary as a weary-faced wanderer and Will Oldham as a somewhat dogmatic, but nonetheless well-intentioned, believer. It is incredible rewarding…
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Mumblecore 2011
Because the directors are presumably on drugs in almost every scene, there isn't much tension between self-representation and "realism." Indeed, their ostensible drug-induced earnestness ensures that the film itself is never boring. What is instead most interesting to ponder upon is less how the film is less a document of drug use but rather one of globalized aimlessness. Compellingly edited, the film's very webcam aesthetic makes us feel almost as if we were engaged in a feature-length Skype call, inviting…
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