A match suddenly sparks to life in a dark room, lighting a candle with a small, fragile flame, as a Hasidic family begins to pray around the dinner table, preparing for their Sabbath dinner. As the candle burns down to a smoldering heap, all the color is slowly drained away until it becomes a cold, stark black-&-white, before the whisper of smoke is abruptly replaced by the towering black cloud erupting from a train, as we're suddenly transported back in…
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In Cold Blood 1967
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Despite how influential Truman Capote's "non-fiction novel" In Cold Blood was considered at the time of its release (a book which, to be perfectly honest, I still haven't read), I suspect that the film adaptation of the same name was likely just as groundbreaking within its own medium; after all, released in 1967, it played side-by-side in theaters with such watersheds as Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate, films which helped pushed the envelopes on cinematic portrayals of sex & violence, but…
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GoodFellas 1990
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster..."
What is it about the gangster that fascinates us so much? Whether they be fictional or real, there's just something about gangsters, and the unencumbered power fantasies they embody that hold an undying fascination for us, despite (or maybe a bit because of?) the moral failings inherent to their lifestyles. It's something that filmmakers have tried to capture time and time again in movies through the…
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Shutter Island 2010
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
A link to my free Patreon write-up comparing/constrasting this with the OTHER DiCaprio movie from 2010, just in case anyone here wants to read it: www.patreon.com/posts/shutter-island-56789555
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Unforgiven 1992
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Unforgiven is haunted by many things; as a film, it's haunted by the perception of a West that never existed, its protagonist is haunted by the memory of his late wife, by the atrocities he committed as a young outlaw, and by the fear that he'll get what he deserves in the afterlife, and finally, one could say that Clint Eastwood himself was haunted, by the long shadows his cinematic mentors cast over his career (Sergio Leone & Don Siegel to…
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Aliens 1986
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
"This time, it's war."
One of the toughest tasks for any young director must be to enter a series that began with what is one of the most iconic genre movies ever, and then have to make a sequel that not only expands on its story & mythology without turning into ridiculous fanfiction (*cough Alien: Resurrection cough*), but also take that series in an entirely new direction, to the point where it goes into a completely different genre, without any of…
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