REVIEW: 竜とそばかすの姫 [Ryû to sobakasu no hime] [Belle] [2021]

Come now, change the world. If Suzu (Kaho Nakamura) had her way, she’d melt into the floor never to be seen or heard from again. It’s been like this for the decade since her mother put on a lifejacket to wade through the choppy river and save another girl her age stranded and crying in the middle of the water. The girl came ashore in that jacket. Her mother didn’t. Suzu has often wondered why she wasn’t more important than that stranger. Why staying with her and her father (Kôji…

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Top Ten Films of 2014: A deluge of sci-fi doppelgängers and one-word titles

I don’t want to label 2014 as a good, bad, or average year. I want to call it inventive, original, and delightfully dark. Whether it’s doppelgänger paradoxes leading to murderous rage, the bleak carnage of war, prison violence, or psychologically debilitating struggles to be great, my favorite films had an edge that cut to the bone by credits’ end. The best thing I can say about 2014 is that my top ten (heck, maybe my top twenty-five) could be re-organized and re-listed without making me too angry about what is…

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