wstebbins

wstebbins

Favorite films

  • No Country for Old Men
  • Whiplash
  • Taxi Driver
  • Raising Arizona

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  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

    ★★★★½

  • Nickel Boys

    ★★★★

  • Blue Velvet

    ★★★★

  • The Brutalist

    ★★★★½

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  • Blue Velvet

    Blue Velvet

    ★★★★

    Definitely the most straightforward Lynch I've seen. Was lucky enough to catch it at Angelika but theater etiquette has definitely gone by the wayside. I am not even going to try to articulate anything here so instead I'll put a quote from Kyle MacLachlan's tribute article:

    "No, I didn’t always understand what we were making. Sometimes I’d get a sense of it, and then like on a breeze, it was gone. Other times it seemed to exist on a plane that I wanted to reach but couldn’t quite articulate.

    But eventually, I realized it didn’t matter."

  • The Brutalist

    The Brutalist

    ★★★★½

    Just superb honestly. The second half was better on a rewatch, although I still don't really get a ton out of the epilogue scene.

    From start to intermission this is a 10/10

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  • Napoleon

    Napoleon

    ★★★

    Like most was a little underwhelmed on the final product here.

    My main critique is that it fails to show what made Napoleon a leader that men wanted to follow. We see the many negative traits that led to his downfall, but I was hoping for more of a well-rounded character study.

    Large parts of the movie feel emotionless and focused on the wrong thing. Acting throughout is solid and the epic battle scenes are great.

    I think ultimately Napoleon tries to do too many things and fails to do any 1 particularly well - it's not a strong biopic, complicated romance, or large-scale action thriller.

  • The Hunt

    The Hunt

    ★★★★½

    Absolute must watch and extremely compelling look at mob mentality.

    This could be the Danish version of Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town."

    Insanely well directed and performed, Mads Mikkelsen is one of our finest living actors.

    Only critique: A bit unbelievable that everyone would turn on a guy this handsome, no?