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I'm Still Here 2024
Seen at Rollberg kino. So the Academy still hasn't learned from 2018. When Hollywood is in shambles, just award best film (and best actress) to a more deserving foreign film, for God's sake. But then the Brazilians probably didn't have the 18 million Oscar lobbying budget Anora got. What an emotionally devastating depiction, Salles knows exactly how to manipulate the viewer (in a good way) without the tone ever becoming histrionic or overly sentimental. The film starts off by introducing…
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Agent of Happiness 2024
Seen at Neues Off as a part of In the Mood. A simultaneously soothing and thought-provoking doc about the Gross National Happiness index of Bhutan. Last year I saw the Monk and the Gun, a comedy about the introduction of democracy in Bhutan back in 2006. At the time, I felt that satire's analysis was overly simplistic and painted a picture of a sickly sweet society of ascetics that knows no suffering, tailor-made for sheltered Western boomers with a spiritual…
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Black Dog 2024
Seen at Neues Off as a part of Around the World in 14 Films. My first film in a while after traveling Mexico and it seems like it was tailor-made for me, can't be a coincidence. I have long since had an aesthetic affinity for deserts and pariah dogs. I have taken picture after picture of pariah dogs that I encountered in my travels in Asia and Latin America, if I were a better photographer I could sell a book…
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Lady Vengeance 2005
Seen at Neues Off as a part of In the Mood. Lacking the draining emotional intensity of the first and the suspenseful narrative of the second installment of Park's Vengeance Trilogy, Lady Vengeance might have the trilogy's most mature thematic exploration of the central theme. It is certainly a slow-burn. Although I had seen this film before, it had been at least 15 years and for a good chunk of the first half of this film I wondered where Park…
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