REVIEW: Midsommar [2019]

No higher and no hotter. It must have been one helluva break-up since no run-of-the-mill, mutual uncoupling could inspire someone to pull a complete reversal like writer/director Ari Aster did. He initially turned down an idea that some Swedish producers brought him to bring to life. He didn’t see the purpose in creating some random slasher set in their Scandinavian nation simply because they were offering the money to do so. Aster only circled back when the messiness of his relationship’s demise provided a reason to get some characters there…

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REVIEW: Paterson [2016]

“Without love, what reason is there for anything?” Doctor William Carlos Williams includes a line inside his epic poem “Paterson” that states: “no ideas but in things.” When writer/director Jim Jarmusch was asked what this meant, he replied: “that you start with the things around you and the details of daily life and you find beauty and resonance in them—poetry grows out of that.” By those terms poetry is forever all around us in the tiny details of life that too many let pass them by without a second thought.…

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