This movie works on you slowly, like the sun and lapping waves and hazy drifting days of a fading summer, until you suddenly feel that autumnal Sunday evening shadow creeping in through your ribs and realize that something precious is ending the way everything ends and you have no mortal power to stop it or get back any of those lost days. Time never stops. If only we could find a way to live inside our memories... Oh but wait,…
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Memories of Underdevelopment 1968
First saw in a class at UCSC in 2001, taught by documentary filmmaker Saul Landau. It was nothing short of a revelation, and seemed to knock something loose inside me in terms of what a film could be. Its mix of personal and political storytelling, employing jarringly different styles, creates a jagged, open-ended piece of art that is infinitely expansive beyond its meager runtime. It is foremost a political film, but at its heart is a pulsing, deeply alive existential…
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Rise of the Nazis 2019
The actual parallels between then and today are endless. This has never been hyperbole and it certainly isn't now. This is literally who runs our country, they just wear stupid red hats instead of red armbands. They have been breaking institutions and dehumanizing immigrants, LGBTQ folks, poor people, which is only the first step that ends in camps. We will have a "Reichstag Fire" in the next 2 years that will allow them to suspend elections and consolidate power. Then…
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Nightmare Alley 2021
No earthly reason for this to be as long as it is. Lots to enjoy here, but any film that asks this much of your time shouldn't be utterly humorless. Y'all are a gang of carnies surrounded by pickled babies. Have a few laughs for chrissake!
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Michael Clayton 2007
Ah, 2007. Not just a banner year for movies, but we had no idea how good we had it. That this was some kind of peak before the long slide into formulaic, cartoonish, mega-budget mediocrity. That Marvel and COVID and streaming and now AI would destroy the movie-going landscape forever.
This diamond. This ancient relic. A legal thriller made for adults, featuring a brilliant script and top-tier talent, in a year that had legions of other intelliegent, beautifully-made adult movies…
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Oppenheimer 2023
Went to see this with my wife on my our 6th wedding anniversary.
She is now divorcing me.
In my defense, my first suggestion was Barbie!!
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