Category: 4 Stars
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Speed Racer
“You think you can drive a car and change the world?” Speed Racer (The Wachowskis, 2008) This movie is so propulsive and triumphant. I love it. Just a few years after the third Matrix movie, the Wachowskis release this film to lackluster fanfare and a mixed critical response. It’s largely seen as a colossal failure:…
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Jackass Forever
“We have winners…and we have Steve-O.” Jackass Forever (Jeff Tremaine, 2022) Some truths are difficult to live with, and one of those truths is that this movie is undeniably good. When I wasn’t laughing, I was cringing. When I wasn’t cringing, I was covering my eyes and desperately trying to unsee what I just saw.…
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Dr. Strangelove
“Peace is our profession.” Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) A surprisingly great comedy given the gravity of the filmmaker. Sellers is preternaturally gifted, and Scott is hilarious. A tight ninety minutes and not a beat is missed. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
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Donnie Darko
“Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.” Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Kelly’s auteur debut is one of the best trojan horse films ever. Moody and brooding and strange. The plot is convoluted, but watching the story unfold is always an enjoyable experience. There are small and delicate touches throughout the film that reflect…
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The Nice Guys
“I had to question the mermaids.” The Nice Guys (Shane Black, 2016) Just give Black twenty million bucks and let the man make any Los Angeles-based noir comedy he wants. They are stellar. This movie is an absolute riot; hilarious through and through. While Gosling and Crowe don’t quite obtain the natural chemistry of RDJ…
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Drive
“There’s a hundred thousand streets in this city, you don’t need to know the route.” Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) Refn steals all the tropes from the Western genre, distills them, refines them, and renders them so effortlessly as a seedy city crime drama that you forget altogether that they actually are tropes. Ryan Gosling…
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Bones and All
“No one our age is new at this.” Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino, 2022) Guadagnino does it again. A brooding and ravenous love story. A grotesque and tragic coming-of-age tale. A poignant commentary on a core component of the human condition. A story that frames the exploration of self against the backdrop of not just…
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The Fountain
“Death is the road to awe.” The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006) I understand that it’s impolite to consider anything but Black Swan to be Aronofsky’s masterpiece, but I really think this might be it. His use of microscopic images of photochemical reactions as representations of interstellar gas is stunning. The narrative structure of the love…
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Palm Springs
“You gotta find your Irvine.” Palm Springs (Max Barbakow, 2020) I’m old enough to say this without getting put in movie opinion jail: Palm Springs is superior to Groundhog Day in every way. I love it so much. Samberg is hilarious and charming. Milioti is a goddamned revelation and astonishingly perfect in the role. There’s…
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Solaris
“We don’t want other worlds; we want mirrors.” Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002) Dreamboat Space Clooney a full eleven years before Cuarón cast him in Gravity. This film has no reason being as beautiful and compelling as it is, but that’s what makes Soderbergh such a master. He builds, unravels, and reconciles mysteries within the tight…
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Sicario
“You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists.” Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015) This movie makes Training Day look like a PBS after school special. I love Emily Blunt and the rest of the stacked cast, but Benecio Del Toro is the star of the show. He contains multitudes. It’s…
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Mandy
“A psychotic drowns where the mystic swims.” Mandy (Panos Cosmatos, 2018) 1980s synth-metal psychedelia wrapped in vengeance horror and tucked into a solo D&D campaign. I love every molecule of the world in which this story takes place. This movie is an acid-laced adrenaline shot directly into the eyes.
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The Vast of Night
“You are entering a realm between clandestine and forgotten, a slipstream caught between channels, the secret museum of mankind, the private library of shadows.” The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson, 2019) Atmospheric and wondrous. Simple but elegant. A remarkable debut film from Patterson, who remediates mistakes made from inexperience with some of the the most…
olde zoetrope 