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Category Archives: Movies Watched In 2016
Angel (1982)
Very cool and casual debut from Neil Jordan that shows a lot of confidence and craft. It points towards the genre/mundane mashings of Mona Lisa and The Crying Gamewonderfully. What starts out as a nightclub-bound character piece about a Jazz saxophonist suddenly turns … Continue reading
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
My first Greenaway! It’s always jarring and a little intimidating when you first dip your toe into the pool of a filmmaker who is notoriously singular and provocative. It’s the moment when your idea of a filmmaker’s sensibility, in this case “Greenaway-esque”, … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged A Zed and Two Noughts, Peter Greenaway
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13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)
Came for the Bayhem. 13 Hours has some pretty great stretches when it operates as a siege film, relying on nothing more than the tension of potential gunfire and attack. Eyes squinting into the crosshairs of weapons, night vision landscapes, shadows striking … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged 13 Hours, James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Michael Bay
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Black Dynamite (2009)
A technically spot-on blaxploitation send-up that is about as funny as anything I’ve seen recently. Michael Jai White kills it. The entire cast kills it. The composer kills it. They really nailed this, right on down to shooting the whole … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Black Dynamite, Michael Jai White, Scott Sanders
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Knight of Cups (2016)
You either vibe with Terrence Malick or you don’t. I don’t get people who claim to love The Tree of Life but then straight up slam To the Wonder or Knight of Cups. Sure, they work to varying degrees of success but the filmmaking, ambition and voice … Continue reading
The Wave (2015)
Technically adept, to-the-point and directed with simplicity and clarity, The Wave is a welcome antidote to the bloated excess of Hollywood’s disaster movie output. The film has some excellent set-pieces and can often be wince-inducing but there is also a lot of … Continue reading
Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
Nigel Kneale and Quatermass are British institutions and were incredibly influential on the people who shaped our current pop culture. Doctor Who, The League of Gentlemen and Edgar Wright, to name but a few, owe a great debt to Kneale … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Nigel Kneale, Quatermass and the Pit, Roy Ward Baker
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A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (2013)
I keep seeing this billed as a documentary but I don’t feel that at all. Sure, it stars real-life musician/artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe but I never got the sense he was appearing as himself. This feels like cinema (yes I know … Continue reading
Twixt (2011)
The kind of film a once-great filmmaker makes when nobody is looking. Twixt was almost immediately thrown under the bus when it premiered on VOD platforms a few years back but it’s far better than that. There’s something thrilling about seeing a … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Alden Ehrenreich, Ben Chaplin, Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning, Francis Ford Coppola, Twixt, Val Kilmer
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Gummo (1997)
Gummo is like channel surfing through weirdo America. This film has a perspective all of its own and it belongs, inherently, to Harmony Korine. Watching Gummo is like stepping into a universe or a strange stupor that could regress into a nightmare at … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Chloe Sevigny, Gummo, Harmony Korine
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"This Film Should Be Played Loud" 