Tag: film criticism
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Leni Riefenstahl
How is an artist to be judged when their work speaks volumes regarding their achievements but the purpose for which it was created is highly questionable? Such a dilemma is the case for Leni Riefenstahl, a clearly talented German film director whose two best known works, Triumph of the Will and Olympia, show tremendous prescience…
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Soviet Silent Films
The history of Soviet Russia remains as fascinating and terrifying as any era in human history. One of the consequences of this political and social upheaval was an emergence of new methods and ideas for operating a successful and prosperous society. New technologies evolved as part of these strategies and perhaps the most formidable was…
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Robert Eggers
In light of the anticipated release of his third feature The Northman, it seemed appropriate to take a brief look at Robert Eggers’ first two movies, which share thematic and stylistic approaches but are also unique enough that they show the burgeoning talent of this promising American director. Like his forthcoming project, The Witch and…
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Sidney Poitier
On February 20, 1927, a Bahamian baby was born three months premature in Miami, Florida, granting him automatic United States citizenship as well as making possible opportunities his other family members could not access. At age ten he was living in Nassau, the largest city in the Bahamas. By fifteen he was living in Miami…
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Licorice Pizza (2021)
Licorice Pizza is Paul Thomas Anderson’s lightest and most predictable movie and those two descriptions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Given Anderson’s prediliction towards abusive characters or his early ensemble pictures where the characters were as much a victim of their circumstances as they were of their own machinations, this latest installment is a surprise…
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The Apartment (1960)
Billy Wilder’s The Apartment has enjoyed tremendous popular and critical acclaim since its release. Yet, only years later has it been seen as anything other than a well-acted, solidly-written studio project about the entanglements of love and corporate ambition. Indeed, sixty years later, it might seem strange to revisit this type of movie and see…
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Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
David Lynch has never been a filmmaker to pander to his audience or coddle them if they react negatively to his work. Rather, like a good parent, he sternly but lovingly introduces them to a slightly different experience that, given the proper attention, is difficult but rewarding. It is surprising that Lynch returned to Twin…
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Inland Empire (2006)
David Lynch’s most recent feature film challenges and expands the understandings of cinema and its artistic context far beyond anything he made before to the point where a mere attempt to ‘review’ or ‘critique’ what happens is more than futile but downright irrelevant. Lynch’s purposes behind this experiment, to the degree that they are understandable,…
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The Straight Story (1999)
It’s almost hard to believe that The Straight Story is directed by David Lynch, whose previous work is responsible for his characterization as the first popular surrealist in American movies. Very little, if anything, about this movie is surreal, except perhaps the sense of the passage of time. In nearly every scene, Lynch slowly builds…