REVIEW: Personal Shopper [2016]

“I just need to see it to the end, that’s all” At the heart of Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper is an idea of fear. This isn’t surprising considering it’s a genre ghost story, but its target is. Lead character Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) isn’t afraid of ghosts, spirits, or the supernatural because she’s a medium like her recently deceased twin brother Lewis. And even though she doesn’t quite believe their abilities prove what he did—the afterlife’s existence—she trusts and respects him enough to make good on the oath they struck…

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REVIEW: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me [1992]

“And the angels wouldn’t help you cause they’ve all gone away” Without European money, American auteur David Lynch wouldn’t have many features to his name. His style isn’t necessarily conducive to our general population’s tastes, its surrealistic and highly sexualized depictions of the darkness underlying American society’s false façade of harmony a hard sell. So it was surprising he’d have a primetime television show at all, let alone one that sparked as much excitement as “Twin Peaks” during its Season One heyday. But there it was: a goofier and more…

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REVIEW: Shoot Me Nicely [2017]

“Was it really that small?” A good cause and effect tale is hard to come by within an era of more is more popcorn fluff filled with contrivances nobody can feasibly ignore. But that’s exactly what Elias Plagianos delivers with short film Shoot Me Nicely. This is not to say there aren’t any coincidences involved to help propel the narrative forward, just that these moments arrive in a way where lead character Sean Wheeler (John Behlmann) has a choice. The coincidence doesn’t seal his fate one way or the other,…

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REVIEW: Julieta [2016]

“Remember, you don’t like goodbyes” It began as many things: an adaptation of Nobel Prize winning Canadian writer Alice Munro‘s three connected short stories from her book Runaway (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”), Pedro Almodóvar‘s English-language debut with its venue switching from Vancouver to New York, and a starring vehicle for Meryl Streep. But Julieta eventually became none of them. It’s still credited as an adaptation, yet Almodóvar would be the first to say that he took pains to make it his own not only in content but context with the…

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REVIEW: Geride Kalanlar [Leftovers] [2017]

“Let’s hope it’s not her” We each possess a blind spot, one seeking to shield the horrors of life we know exist regardless. It manifests a sense of optimism in that we are safe because we live morally or that those we trust are inherently good. The opposite—to live in constant paranoia believing tragedy is inevitable—is not living at all. That’s how you imprison yourself, wall off your emotions, and ensure no one will get close enough to hurt you or deserve mourning. But we need physical contact and emotional…

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REVIEW: 路边野餐 [Lù biān yě Cān] [Kaili Blues] [2016]

“You took a photo and stole my soul” While the calling card for Gan Bi‘s feature debut 路边野餐 [Lù biān yě Cān] [Kaili Blues] is its magnificent 41-minute long take, that scene is but a movie within a movie. Its brilliance is in the way it takes his main character Chen Sheng (played by the writer/director’s uncle Yongzhong Chen) and us away from the tragic reality of death, disappointment, and frustration. For the first thirty minutes (before the title card even arrives), we’re simply getting to know this ex-con doctor…

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REVIEW: Psychic Murder [2017]

“Yes. I realize I look … like the Hamburger Helper.” The idea of a “deal with the devil” tale is to show how—if at all—the victim caught with his/her soul on the line can escape. The fun is in the torture of this latest riff on Faust by his malicious benefactor and the payoff the inevitable bittersweet end. But what if it didn’t have to go that way? What if the victim that always proves to be a good person who made a regretful mistake out of hubris is exactly…

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REVIEW: Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel] [1930]

“Beware of blondes. They’re special, every one.” It was interesting to discover Josef von Sternberg‘s career started in Hollywood, directing many late-silent era pictures. I assumed the Austrian-born auteur began in Europe because he was the man behind the camera for Germany’s first feature-length talkie, Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel]. But his helming it was actually at the behest of German star Emil Jannings who—despite reportedly clashing on set of their previous film together, The Last Command, where he won the Oscar for Best Actor—wanted Sternberg to guide him…

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REVIEW: Before I Fall [2017]

“This isn’t you” The comparisons to Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow are unavoidable when you have a story centering on a teenager reliving the same day over and over again like Before I Fall. It’s not bad either when each utilizes the trope in different ways and within different genres. Whether comedy, science-fiction actioner, or young adult coming-of-age drama, the construct remains resonate because we all have regrets. That’s what’s at the heart of these, this idea of going back to fix a wrong ultimately revealed to be much…

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REVIEW: Table 19 [2017]

“Good luck with your future endeavors” I’d be very interested in reading the original script for Table 19 as drafted by Jay and Mark Duplass. If you don’t know, this 2017 release was optioned way back in 2009 with the brothers attached to direct as their fourth feature (it was competing with Cyrus as far as what would be next). Two years went by and it was still unmade, the studio hiring Jeffrey Blitz to come in and take over the helm. More than just directorial duties, however, Blitz took…

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REVIEW: The Last of England [1987]

“There are more walls in England than Berlin, Johnny” While the short poem Ford Madox Brown wrote to accompany his painting The Last of England has a hopeful lilt (“…She grips his listless hand and clasps her child, Through rainbow tears she sees a sunnier gleam, She cannot see a void where he will be.”), the film Derek Jarman has created with the same name does not. Where the painting shows a couple leaving their country for greener pastures, the film depicts that country having left its people. It starts…

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