Ryan Berger

Ryan Berger

Favorite films

  • Everything Everywhere All at Once
  • Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
  • Boogie Nights
  • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Recent activity

All
  • A Different Man

    ★★★

  • A Real Pain

    ★★★½

  • Princess Mononoke

    ★★★★

  • Porco Rosso

    ★★★★★

Recent reviews

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  • A Different Man

    A Different Man

    ★★★

    My dad used to argue when I was in high school that few of my generation's pop culture giants seemed to grasp that SWAG stands for "Stuff We All Get". This informal lesson in linguistics is most likely born of the definition for swag that has to do with those corporate giftbags or branded pens, metal mugs, drawstring backpackers etc. The new use, used for describing someone with a bold sense of self, may or may not have any connection…

  • A Real Pain

    A Real Pain

    ★★★½

    This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Popular reviews

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  • Killers of the Flower Moon

    Killers of the Flower Moon

    ★★★★★

    There's a quote by Ursula Le Guin that I'm going to butcher here but I think accurately solves the discourse surrounding who gets to tell what stories. It goes something like "(to say one can't write about other perspectives they don't own/lives they have not lived) is not only an insult to my imagination but ****more importantly****, it's an insult to my capacity for empathy". This, to me, is the guiding star for all writers seeking to tell stories in…

  • Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful

    Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful

    ★★

    Some of the jankiest, clunkiest writing I’ve heard in a long time. Legitimately wonder if an AI was involved in writing it even if it’s ostensibly a story about skewering the content pipeline Netflix is almost certainly going to reach for eventually. It seems like only an algorithm could write in this very specific flavor of cringe.  And if it’s doing “a bit” with its dialogue then it absolutely could and should have ended at a specific point. 

    However interesting…