Tag: film review
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The Northman (2022)
For those who have had their fill of comic book-based movies and endlessly serialized tales of superheroes and mythical creatures, Robert Eggers offers moviegoers the chance to venture into one of the oldest mythologies on record – a legend that serves, essentially, as the basis for so many of Hollywood’s new releases. At their core,…
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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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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…
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Twin Peaks (1990-1991)
One of the fundamental aspects about David Lynch is that he is wholly committed to the creative process, regardless of the medium. For Lynch, a painter who progressed to experimental short films, the jump to feature films is not unusual, especially since he envisioned these projects as ‘moving paintings.’ But few could have predicted that…
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Dune (1984)
When an artist capable of dreaming up his own, unique world collides with a different, unique world not of his making, the result can be either spectacular or disastrous. In either case, the result is typically neither boring nor forgettable. Yet, when it comes to David Lynch’s adaptation of the science-fiction classic novel Dune, these…
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First Reformed (2017)
Many filmmakers might have a movie like First Reformed stored away either in their mind or on paper. The trick, however, is to bring such a story to life and discover if that is even a worthy cause. Often this can come at a great cost for the filmmaker, who typically puts everything on the…
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Dog Eat Dog (2016)
In interviews promoting the movie, Paul Schrader stated that making Dog Eat Dog was a chance at redemption for him and Nicolas Cage, given that their experience with their previous collaboration resulted in a movie that neither of them endorsed. As a result, there is a manic energy and sense of throwing caution to the…
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The Walker (2007)
After dealing with a difficult situation regarding his cut of an Exorcist prequel, Paul Schrader got the independent financial support for another entry in his career-long project of studying the persona of a man who no doubt shares many attributes with his creator. Colloquially known as the “man in a room” or “night worker”series, Schrader…
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Auto Focus (2002)
Who, exactly, was Bob Crane? Aside from the obvious answer regarding his career and brief peak of fame as Colonel Hogan of Hogan’s Heroes, there seems to be little else distinctive that can be said of him as an actor, a husband and father, and a man. Certainly when he was popular, there appeared to…