Steven

Steven

Favorite films

  • Stalker
  • The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
  • The Fountain
  • Apocalypse Now

Recent activity

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  • Portrait of a Lady on Fire

    ★★★★½

  • Arkansas

    ★★★

  • Once Upon a Time in the West

    ★★★★★

  • Parasite

    ★★★★★

Recent reviews

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  • Elysium

    Elysium

    ★★

    Elysium is the Prometheus of 2013 - a really interesting-looking sci-fi movie with tons of potential and an acclaimed director that ends up being very disappointing...except Prometheus still managed to be significantly better than Elysium.

    The biggest problem isn't the extremely preachy story which borders on being insultingly simple (the little girl's story about the meerkat and the hippo good god) but the flat and uninteresting characters that result in you having absolutely no investment in or reason to care…

  • Das Summen der Insekten

    Das Summen der Insekten

    ★★★★

    The Sound of Insects is about a man who feels so disconnected and uninvolved with existence that he attempts to reverse the insignificance of his life through the method of his suicide. Namely, through the most self-involved, prolonged way possible - starvation.

    Although it's most easily classified as a documentary (an unconventional one, to be sure), all the visual and audio elements are there purely to support the most important aspect of the film - the narration. The text of…

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  • The Trial

    The Trial

    ★★★★½

    “The Court wants nothing from you. It receives you when you come and it dismisses you when you go.”

    Orson Welles perfectly captures the tone of Franz Kafka's surreal masterpiece - everything from the absurdity to the creepiness to the black comedy. Even the fragmented narrative manages to work on-screen by having scenes flow into each other in a very dreamlike fashion. The sets are astounding and range from huge, open railway stations (with nearly 900 extras clamoring on typewriters)…

  • Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

    Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

    ★★★★★

    The first and best installment of Chan-wook Park's 'Vengeance Trilogy'. Although it lacks Oldboy's more stylish visuals, it has a captivating rawness and intensity in its cinematography that perfectly complements the bleak story of good intentions turned tragic. The movie never 'blinks' or turns away from its dark content - it lingers, highlighting the inability of the characters to stop the events they've set in motion. South Korea has made a lot of revenge-based movies in the past few years, but this is still the genre's finest achievement.

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