Impossible not to respect Miyazaki for letting one confounding moment to the next just be when every other 8-episode greenlight nowadays exists to explain away The Lore of another IP’s most inconsequential details. Spirited Away refuses to decode anything—for that reason, I used to think it is, apart from Ponyo, Miyazaki’s simplest, one meant to have us sit back and dissolve into its whimsy. Today, though, it strikes me just as razor sharp as Miyazaki's best; the spirit bathhouse embodies a…
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La La Land 2016
What is this movie trying to be? Chazelle takes a big swing at all the things he likes, but what are we left with? Tonally it’s all over the place.
What really broke me this time was the kid with the red balloon—because, wink wink, get it? In Paris? Red Balloon? For every decent visual idea here there are twice as many all caps REFERENCES, apropos of nothing—it’s like a marvel film’s self-referentialism, but for the most annoying film bros of all time. Blech!!
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Twin Peaks: The Return 2017
Anti-materialist cinema—literally nothing like it. This time around, with a complete and quick watch through the two seasons and Fire Walk With Me, I was surprised by how straightforwardly this all unfolds, at least by Lynch’s standards. Even the most mystifying moments offer more than enough connective tissue to make sense of their place in the larger syntax, especially by Part 17. An unusual symbol always comes around to speak for itself, at least on a literal “lore” level (save for a shrinking…
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I'm Thinking of Ending Things 2020
It’s not very often I see a film openly antagonize its audience for wanting something palatable, easily consumed and understood. Kaufman and his marketing team baited us with that ‘A24-flair’ trailer, but, thankfully, that is not what is in store here.
Instead, this is a capital ‘A’ Art film the likes of which I haven’t seen since Holy Motors. While Motors was masterful, I’m Thinking of Ending Things: not so much. Though maybe? When the credits appeared I couldn’t stop…
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