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The End 2024
Shannon is credited as “Father” but might as well be “The White Man Who Rules The World For All the Other Patriarchs.” This self-deluding figure homeschools his child with propaganda about how, as a corporate head, he really did care about saving the planet; over the lengthy running time, dad comes to understand he has something to answer for. But when it comes to climate change, I’m interested in nihilism, grief, realpolitik solutions and not much more; belated accountability exercises,…
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Nickel Boys 2024
Filmmaker: When it comes to the part of pre-production where it’s like, “how many cars, how many locations,” were you sent to some kind of boot camp or was it just real-time learning?
Ross: The experience has been writing with Joslyn, making the script as powerful as it could be so people can look at that and say, “OK, that means we need how many locations?” I had nothing to do with it. On the day, I’m responsible for the…
Popular reviews
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Frances Ha 2012
This is the kind of movie that causes strongly polarized reactions based on each viewer's capacity to tolerate/recognize/empathize with those on-screen. Some people just can't handle watching 20-/30-something white people undergo minor crises within a basically privileged framework, which is understandable. (That said, I'm not sure why someone with that mindset would ever go watch ANY NOAH BAUMBACH MOVIE and ask afterwards — as some guy did — " if it had any sort of larger social context… besides only…
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Magic Mike XXL 2015
Magic Mike XXL is a putatively "modest"/"small" film — $14.8 million budget, 28-day shooting schedule, a shambling road movie meant to showcase extended musical numbers and largely excising the first film's recessionary panic. (Business is discussed, specifically the hustle of running a small business, but it's not the dominant throughline motivating everything as in the first, a line of inquiry Soderbergh pursued in Erin Brockovich, Bubble and The Girlfriend Experience, in ways that increasingly played like a meta-text about his…