REVIEW: Morocco [1930]

I changed my mind. Good luck! It’s said that Marlene Dietrich put a copy of Benno Vigny‘s “Amy Jolly” into director Josef von Sternberg‘s pocket before he set sail for America. Their German collaboration The Blue Angel had yet to be released, but the consensus that it would prove a hit was enough to land him in Hollywood with keen prospects and potential money. He then leveraged both to give birth to Morocco with Jules Furthman adapting the script and the studio bringing Dietrich over to star. One soon-to-be hit…

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REVIEW: Crash [1996]

I somehow find myself driving again. Writer/director David Cronenberg opens his J.G. Ballard adaptation Crash with a sex-crazed couple engaging in the act with people other than their partner before meeting back home to share their extra-marital affairs and ultimately arouse themselves yet again to finish the job their flings couldn’t. They get off on talking about the act, but the real impactful details are the ones where they explain how easy it would have been for them to get caught. That danger sets them off more than a desire…

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REVIEW: Reminiscence [2021]

Nothing is more addictive than the past. There’s a lot to like about Lisa Joy‘s feature debut Reminiscence—the least of which is its premise of memories as a drug. The concept itself isn’t a unique one, but that truth renders it no less alluring in its potential. Because while official use of extraction pods for deposition purposes is nuts and bolts generic, recreational use in a semi-post-apocalyptic world wherein customers can relive their happiest moments from the past and escape the harsh reality of the present has a certain romance…

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REVIEW: Needle in a Timestack [2021]

Happiness is the only thing more fleeting than time. For a movie about a fated love (Leslie Odom Jr.‘s Nick and Cynthia Erivo‘s Janine) being undermined by a jealous ex (Orlando Bloom‘s Tommy), I didn’t expect to witness a scene towards the beginning wherein the latter philosophically (and selfishly) attempts to legitimize his sabotage by explaining how every love is, by definition, another’s missed opportunity. He points out a random woman in the bar and tells Nick that whomever she falls for will be the lucky one of millions, setting…

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REVIEW: Gûzen to sôzô [Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy] [2021]

Maybe it’s the loss of someone I believed was mine. Everyone lives through a series of choices. Some are buoyed by the happiness of having always chosen correctly (or at least the privilege of never having to wonder if the other choice would have provided greater happiness) and some weighed down by regret. There are other times too, however, that people may find themselves existing in a moment where happiness becomes inextricably linked to regret. Perhaps it’s only through pushing yourself to the brink of self-destruction that you finally realize…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Ich bin dein Mensch [I’m Your Man] [2021]

Your eyes are like two mountain lakes I could sink into. Writer/director Maria Schrader‘s Ich bin dein Mensch [I’m Your Man] posits the question: What if Weird Science, but real? That’s not to say the conceit she and co-writer Jan Schomburg have created (from a short story by Emma Braslavsky) isn’t science fiction fantasy. I just mean that their romantic comedy isn’t saddled by the puerile male gaze of an 80s sex romp. It uses its skeptical lead character (Maren Eggert‘s ancient language specialist Alma) to confront the scenario she’s…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: A feleségem története [The Story of My Wife] [2021]

You must accommodate life or else it will punish you. It was a joke. Captain Jakob Störr (Gijs Naber) is cajoled into meeting his con artist friend Kodor (Sergio Rubini) at a fancy restaurant while on shore leave to help spy on a business partner double-crossing him. Störr had recently been told by his ship’s cook that the stone in his gut was a longing for love rather than food poisoning, so Kodor’s prompt for fake small talk inevitably leads to the captain declaring his need for a wife. The…

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FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Baby, Don’t Cry [2021]

You still have a chance. Baby (Zita Bai) is a seventeen-year-old Chinese immigrant surviving on the fringes of her community. She’s a voyeur—always with camera on to capture the dialogue and actions of others so that she can better mimic how it is that she should act to “fit in.” That she also photographs animal carcasses and death with excitement might make that sort of assimilation tough, but she’s not really interested in those that would dismiss such a thing without context. It’s not until she meets Fox (Vas Provatakis)…

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FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Sukutte goran [Love, Life and Goldfish] [2021]

It was uplifting to some extent. There are two types of people in this world. Those who find a ninety-minute romantic comedy musical with a ninety-second song serving as an intermission break twee and those who find it charming. Middle ground doesn’t exist in this equation and director Yukinori Makabe rightfully refuses to pretend otherwise. His film Sukutte goran [Love, Life and Goldfish] (adapted by Atsumi Tsuchi from Noriko Otani‘s manga of the same name) wears its idiosyncratic feel-good sentimentality on its sleeve to provide the dreamlike environment Makoto Kashiba…

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REVIEW: Rare Beasts [2021]

I still love and respect myself. I love this line from the director notes of Billie Piper‘s Rare Beasts: “When you live through nihilism/cynicism/hopelessness, your view of the world is not necessarily as it is, but rather your projection [of it].” She’s speaking about the frank tone and dialogue of the heightened world she’s constructed on-screen as writer/director/star, but she could also be talking about the lens in which we now view our own world via social media. You could say Piper has chosen the trending topic of “romantic love”…

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REVIEW: Moffie [2020]

You are no longer someone. There’s no better propaganda machine than the military. But while that institution generally wields its power upon those who willingly embrace its messaging, not every country relies on volunteers to fill their ranks. For countries like South Africa during Apartheid, conscription became a way to retain white minority control. Why? Because it ensured that every able white male would receive a steady dose of its racist and bigoted rhetoric for at least two years. Rather than preach to the choir, the Afrikaners could brainwash every…

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