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Author Archives: Ross Birks
Surface Pleasures: Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon (2016)
Jesse (Elle Fanning) is an angelic 16 year old who flies to L.A. with dreams of being a catwalk star. She becomes acquainted with two models, Sarah (Abbey Lee) and Gigi (Bella Heathcote), and a makeup artist, Ruby (Jena Malone). … Continue reading
Hana-bi (1997)
I’ve seen a few odd Kitano movies here and there but this one feels like the real deal. There’s a cut early on, from the flame of a lighter to the explosion of a gunshot, that really made me sit … Continue reading
Afternoon Delight (2013)
Afternoon Delight is like a new spin on one of indie cinema’s most cliche’d character tropes: the stripper with a heart of gold. This one is written and directed by a woman, Jill Soloway. Here it’s not a man who comes … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Afternoon Delight, Jill Soloway, Juno Temple, Kathryn Hahn
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Victoria (2015)
Victoria is something of a catch-22. On the one hand its all-in-one-shot gimmick heightens a rather generic thriller into a real-time feat of technical bravado. On the other, the film becomes frustratingly long-winded and meandering where it should be brisk and … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Frederick Lau, Laia Costa, Sebastian Schipper, Victoria
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Friday the 13th (1980)
Friday the 13th was never really a good film was it? Watching it today it’s pretty indistinguishable from the countless other stalk-and-slash horror movies that emerged in Halloween‘s wake. Thanks to an impressive distribution spread from Paramount and a smart marketing campaign, … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews, Rewatch
Tagged Betsy Palmer, Friday the 13th, Harry Menfredini, Sean S. Cunningham, Tom Savini
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Dirty Grandpa (2016)
A dumb fucking exercise in bad taste and dumbassery that is almost thrilling in it’s total lack of restraint, craft and intelligence. Dirty Grandpa never ceases to be entertaining. Even bad films can be fun. But can all stupid career … Continue reading
The Look of Silence (2015)
It’s one thing to see movies where the idea of “evil” is mythologized, stylized and characterized in a never-ending variety of abstractions and personifications but to actually look real evil the eye is something else entirely. That’s what lies at … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Rewatch
Tagged Joshua Oppenheimer, The Look of Silence
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Lorna (1964)
Lorna feels interchangeable with most other Russ Meyer movies but lacks something distinct. It’s the first film of his I’ve seen that I had trouble remembering the specifics of a few days later. That isn’t suggest it’s completely forgettable though. … Continue reading
WarGames (1983)
A fun 80s cyber-thriller (the first of it’s kind?) that may have lost some of it’s modernity when watching in hindsight. I bet audiences were overwhelmed with all this tech on screen in 1983 and it felt like it was … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Ally Sheedy, John Badham, Matthew Broderick, WarGames
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Slowing It Way Down: Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015)
I haven’t watched or thought about a film in the past five months as much as I have The Hateful Eight. I’ve seen it four times now and considering it’s length, it’s weight and it’s ambition, that’s a pretty substantial amount … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2015, Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews, Rewatch
Tagged Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, Damian Bachir, Ennio Morricone, James Parks, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, Michael Madsen, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Richardson, Samuel L Jackson, The Hateful Eight, Walton Goggins
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"This Film Should Be Played Loud" 