review
Sheep in the Box
In what universe is this even remotely a possibility that exploring such concepts in this way genuinely has anything meaningful to contribute to our understanding of the human condition?
Reviews
late night reviews and rants about film and other media
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review
Materialists
Supposedly an elevated melancholic take on the 2000s era romcom/drama genre, Materialists is a pretentious, tonally inconsistent 'Sofia Coppola from Wish' production that constantly attempts to hide its lacking understanding of basic human emotions by hammering the audience on the head with poetic platitudes about the power of love in an era of superficial, transactional dating culture--backed, of course, by a generic dreamy soundtrack and visuals both as vapid as the film and the themes it presents themselves.
review
Triangle of Sadness: Expected an Ocean and Landed in a Puddle
A shallow, borderline offensive attempt at art-house film and social criticism.
review
Eagles of the Republic
In his first film in the Arabic-language Cairo trilogy, Swedish-Egyptian director Tarek criticizes pre-revolution political corruption; in his second, the Muslim Brotherhood; with his latest release, the neo-noir political thriller Eagles of the Republic, Tarek is more daring, taking aim at the active ruling Egyptian government. Except, due to sloppy writing and historical inaccuracies, it is not very effective at doing so.
review
Tuner
What began as a formulaic yet charming Rain Man meets Drive crime thriller unfortunately collapses under its own clumsy writing in the last act.
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review
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Deals with the topic of gender with all the nuance you would expect today from a white feminist born in the 1960s, especially one coming from nobility. But at least the animation is nice.
review
Cloud
The premise of a guy attempting to find freedom through capitalism and hustle his way into wealth as an alternative to the hopelessness felt by the iceberg generation in Japan's stalling economy, yet only to be cornered into inevitable violence is in itself fine, even if not particularly original, but the practical execution is embarrassing for a director of this standing.
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Die My Love
Ostensibly deals with postpartum depression from a grounded female gaze but instead repeats old tropes of manic pixie female hysteria with an embarrassing amount of feral Lawrence crawling on the ground but make it sexy scenes? Postpartum depression but actually she still really loves and cares for the baby, it's the dog that overstimulates her really.
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Companion
Ostensibly a darkly satirical revenge comedy about misogyny, female empowerment, and agency against male abusers, the male writer/director makes sure you never forget it is foremost a metaphor, beating us on the head endlessly with a surface-level understanding of abuse dynamics and foregoing any consistency in plot in favor of witty, ironic oneliners aimed at the audience instead of organic dialogue between and towards the on-screen characters.
review
Napoleon and the Lamb Chops of Destiny
The only thing Napoleon has going for it is its indulgence in farcical iconoclasm; a very deliberate depiction of a near-mythological historical figure as a comically inept, less-than-human caricature.