REVIEW: Dune [2021]

They see what they’ve been told to see. The trap is set. One day House Harkonnen is ruling over the spice mines of Arrakis with an iron fist and the next sees them leaving. The local Freman know it won’t last, though. Outlanders have come to oppress their people for generations ever since discovering the power of this substance within the sand. Without it, interstellar travel is impossible. As such, whomever oversees its cultivation has the potential for wealth beyond the imagination. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen’s (Stellan Skarsgård) avarice therefore makes…

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REVIEW: The Matrix Reloaded [2003]

We can never see past the choices we don’t understand. Hype and nostalgia are drugs. Not only was I super psyched for The Matrix Reloaded when it came out, I remember being equally psyched upon leaving the theater. I was twenty-one, had just seen The Matrix a year or two previously (was late on that bandwagon), and had watched The Animatrix a couple times to prepare. A bunch of us got together to hit opening weekend (two of whom spoke French and confirmed that the cursing done by Lambert Wilson‘s…

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REVIEW: Dune [1984]

What can be done has been done. It’s impossible to watch David Lynch‘s adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s Dune without wondering where the rest of it is. You can’t necessarily blame the director, though. He was a hired hand in many respects who hadn’t even heard of the novel when approached after many other versions (one famously spearheaded by Alejandro Jodorowsky) had failed. Lynch read the classic, loved it, and initially fleshed out a way to tell it in two films (much like what’s currently happening with Denis Villeneuve at the…

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REVIEW: The Animatrix [2003]

And for a time, it was good. One of the best traits about The Matrix was that it provided only what was necessary to understand its specific narrative. Exposition was often truncated or spoken matter-of-factly without detail or explanation to move us from point A to point B without much excess. This was crucial considering the film was already over two hours and none of those minutes could be wasted. Subsequently creating a two-film continuation of Neo’s (Keanu Reeves) rise as a Christ-like figure to save humanity from the machines…

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REVIEW: The Matrix [1999]

There is no spoon. Who better to realize humanity is living inside a simulation than hackers? They’re the ones with knowledge of computer systems and the glitches and backdoors within. And when one gets too close to the truth, who better than government agents to be the hunters trying to eradicate them? It isn’t national security that they’re worried about, though. It’s the viability of a world that has been constructed to keep them alive. That’s the secret being threatened. Not bank accounts or confidential files. Reality itself. So, when…

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REVIEW: A Quiet Place Part II [2021]

They’re not the kind of people worth saving. Part of the appeal to A Quiet Place was its vacuumed existence as a chapter in the lives of people as they are right now without any desire to pretend who they were or what they may become is relevant. It’s not because it can’t be. The Abbott family can’t afford to remember or dream because alien creatures have decimated Earth. If not for the fact that young Regan (Millicent Simmonds) was born deaf and therefore pushed the rest of them to…

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REVIEW: Don’t Look Up [2021]

But it’s all math. I think Adam McKay is broken. I’m not even a fan of his films with Will Ferrell (save Step Brothers and the first twenty minutes of The Other Guys), but his success on The Big Short (his best film in my opinion) has begun a new chapter of his career that’s careened towards smug self-satisfaction. McKay is in desperate need of an outside source to let him know that what he’s making isn’t satire. I get that the last two years dealing with COVID in the…

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REVIEW: Titane [2021]

You think I can’t recognize my own son? It always fascinates me when you hear stories about audacious new films being “unlike anything you’ve ever seen” and “wild enough to cause audience members to faint in their seats” since the ones carrying those labels are often quite tame by comparison. That’s not to say Julia Ducournau‘s latest Titane isn’t without its tensely disturbing moments. Watching Agathe Rousselle slam her face down onto a bathroom sink to break her nose isn’t going to be for the faint of heart, but I…

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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: Venom: Let There Be Carnage [2021]

Responsibility is for the mediocre. I’m pretty sure there’s more exposition in Venom: Let There Be Carnage than there was in Venom. It’s not without reason. At the time of the original’s inception, Sony had their hands tied. The Marvel characters they had—namely those from the Spider-Man universe—couldn’t integrate with the Marvel Cinematic Universe at-large without an agreement like the one that allowed Spidey into the Avengers. And since Spider-Man was an Avenger, he couldn’t interact with those characters either. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) was therefore on an island alone…

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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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