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‘Swiss Army Man’ Movie Review – is the Heartwarming Farting Corpse Buddy Comedy You’ve Been Waiting For

  Swiss Army Man Written and Directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert U.S., 2016 One of the hopes that people come to the Sundance Film Festival with is that they will see something wholly unique, something that they have never seen or imagined before. Swiss Army Man is that film. This feeling happens pretty quickly, as …

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Taking notice of the truly exceptional sonic wizardry of ‘Love & Mercy’

Sound has been an essential part of filmmaking for nearly ninety years, yet is the art and the craft of sound mixing and sound editing is not especially appreciated by modern cinephiles, including this writer. But the recent release of Bill Pohland’s double-sided Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy caused me to stand to stand …

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‘Prisoners’ is an engrossingly gruelling drama soaked in blood, grief and indefensible deception

Overstuffed with an A-list cast, Denis Villeneuve’s (Incendies, Polytechnique) Prisoners is a funereal and often shocking meditation on what people are capable of doing for their loved ones. Permeated with savagery and blood, this is a film that forces ghastly situations on the audience which they’ve likely seen before but are hopefully not entirely numb to processing from a victim’s point of view. The drive behind what holds a family together for better or worse is showcased in painful detail. Gruesome, agonizing, and distressing, Prisoners goes for the jugular and leaves everyone wincing at the hideous view of the human condition that it leaves in its wake.

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’12 Years a Slave’ Movie Review – Can’t match the intensity of McQueen’s first two features

Welcome to our “12 Years a Slave” Reviews. Review #1 12 Years a Slave Written by John Ridley Directed by Steve McQueen USA, 2013 With Hunger and Shame, Steve McQueen crafted two highly divergent, yet equally distinctive character studies of men whose respective physical existences are defined by extremity. Hunger’s Bobby Sands stays true to his political convictions in …

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Rian Johnson’s superb ‘Looper’ is the best Hollywood sci-fi of recent memory

Looper Written and directed by Rian Johnson USA/China, 2012 Of its numerous strengths, one of Looper’s greatest is that, despite featuring narration by its lead character, it heavily relies on visual storytelling to successfully convey both information and emotion. The narration delivers as little exposition as necessary to begin understanding both of its dystopian worlds, …

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Inside Out 2012: ‘Speechless’ adheres to a gimmick that never fully surpasses its novelty

Speechless Written and Directed by Simon Chung Hong Kong/China, 2012 If a picture’s worth a thousand words, than what can you say about a picture named Speechless. Devoid of meaningful dialogue and any excuse for doing so, the protagonist in Simon Chung’ Speechless adheres to a gimmick that never fully surpasses its novelty. The protagonist …

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NYFF 2010: “Meek’s Cutoff”

“Although masterful in its art and creative limitations, the film direly falls apart at the end…” Meek’s Cutoff Directed by Kelly Reichardt Yet again, director Kelly Reichardt and  screenwriter Jon Raymond collaborate to raise modern-day contemporaneous issues, this time in a pre-colonial fashion with Meek’s Cutoff.  As 2006’s Old Joy confronts the dissolutions of brotherhood, …

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