Recent reviews

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  First Cow 2019

  ★★★½ Watched 13 Sep 2021

  This is a beautiful film.

  Reichart paces her PNW period pieces at a speed so slow it feels hyperrealistic. We watch through doors and windows as characters complete tasks in real time. When we first see our protagonists alone together, the interaction is jarringly intimate -- we stay with their shyness and discomfort until it grows into warm companionship.

  The characters, and the actors who play them, are achingly well-crafted. The dynamics feel ripped from the pages of Steinbeck. The…

• 

  Nomadland 2020

  ★★★ Added

  I mean, like, yeah. It's great, obviously.

  It captures an American subculture, it blurs lines between narrative and documentary filmmaking, it calls to the latent adventurer.

  Frances McDormand makes a charming and disarming lead.

  The landscape is breathtaking. Chloe Zhao is a Great.

  Why didn't it strike a chord in my soul?

  It felt like looking at the print of a classic painting instead of the real thing -- still stunning, but... not magic. I was missing the texture of the brushstrokes.

  The messiness felt orchestrated. The bucket shits were choreographed.

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