REVIEW: Vox Lux [2018]

Simply put: it was a hit. America lost its innocence on 9/11. It wasn’t an overnight thing, though. The gradual degradation of humanity on an ever-shrinking global landscape stewarded us there as school shootings and terrorist attacks grew with their weak links towards violent videogames rather than an otherwise Puritan sense of sex being worse than murder. Our repressed selves fought against growing malaise until that day provided a scapegoat to blame. We turned our internal rage onto an undeserving people suddenly reduced to their worst and smallest faction so…

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REVIEW: Eden [2014]

“Save France with Coke” The rock and roll life has always been filled with temptation no matter what decade. So electronica, house, and garage music’s heyday (has it ended?) of the 90s proves no exception. With its world of DJs and samplers standing at turntables while their audience danced and raved below, however, learning a little bit of the behind the scenes drama couldn’t hurt from building upon its mystique. Unsurprisingly its luminaries possessed the usual copious amount of drugs, sex, and money woes like in every other genre. What…

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REVIEW: While We’re Young [2015]

“She is a mess. And an ugly eater.” I hated While We’re Young—a fact that actually increases my already healthy dose of respect for writer/director Noah Baumbach. He’s a filmmaker with the type of style, tone, and air of not quite tongue-in-cheek pretension you could pick out from across the room as his and his alone. Sometimes it’s good (Greenberg) or downright perfection (The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha). Other times it makes me so mad I could scream (Margot at the Wedding). Here’s the thing, though: they…

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REVIEW: Martha Marcy May Marlene [2011]

“Death is pure love” Lost and alone, Martha never knew what love was. Her parents gone at a young age, her sister away in college, living with a chimney for an aunt who to this day she says hated her—loneliness always prevailed whether people were around or not. So it’s no surprise she would be lured in by the kindness, compassion, and gentle voices of a commune living off the beaten path. A community of strays reborn into a life with purpose, she would find her place and never feel…

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TIFF11 REVIEW: Melancholia [2011]

“Two million and six beans” Director Lars von Trier has never been easily accessible. Part of his genius is the ability to go places others might not dare, shoot imagery no one else could even fathom, and push his actors into authentic performances that risk sending them into the same psychological tailspin as their characters. So you can just imagine how unique his vision of the apocalypse would be. It would portray emotionally unstable people as they near their end. It would expose the underbelly of familial strife. Portray the…

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