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Jasper Mall 2020
It's Frederick Wiseman's Russian Ark, guided by a Kiwi Joe Exotic.
This movie is an elegy for End Stage Capitalism. It's the last gasp of a pre-COVID society that failed us on every level, from 2019 Alabama to 2021 Texas. I hope that if this is the end of shopping malls -- an institution I love more than any rational person should -- it is the precursor to a more equitable and just society.
It may have been tempting for…
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The Hunt for Red October 1990
The real question is: Is The Hunt for Red October a Halloween movie?
Possibly the last great Cold War movie before the USSR disbanded. I remember watching this in theaters in 8th grade and being absolutely baffled by it: it's not a movie for 14 year-old idiots. I remember even thinking, "Oh I'm not grown up enough for this."
As a middle-aged man who has been, for some reason, reticent to revisit the movie, I'm in awe of how tight…
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Fallen Leaves 2023
Fallen Leaves is just a wonderful little indie movie that is somehow family appropriate (other than some drinking and smoking, I suppose).
Two lonely souls who make their way through life in menial jobs meet by happenstance -- as is sometimes the case -- and forge a slow-building romance.
I've seen comparisons to La La Land or Before Sunrise, but the movie it most reminds me of is the criminally- underrated Next Stop Wonderland, with a lot of near-misses and…
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Comedian 2002
It's one thing to be funny. It's another thing to entirely to be a Comedian. Such is the thesis of this portrait of two stand-up comics.
One of the comics is Jerry Seinfeld, one of the greatest, and inarguably most heralded comic of the last three decades. The other is Orny Adams, a young, brash upstart. The contrast between the two drives the film.
While Orny is a nobody, he boldly demands respect, gets upset by hecklers, blames crowds for…
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