Letterboxd — Your life in film

As a Spielberg admirer who was not in the least let down by WAR HORSE, I pictured myself enjoying his follow-up effort just as much. It was thus discouraging to figure out while sitting through the first half-hour that I made a large miscalculation.

LINCOLN is not your typical Spielbergian fare with a flowing narrative and warm, sensitive camerawork plucking various emotional chords. Instead, for the most part it maintains a cold, detached tone while taking an interest in the…

I would have thought it inconceivable to end up loving David Bowie's "Heroes" more than before, but this film did the trick in its featuring the song thanks to the strong emotions evoked by the narrative's sincere nostalgia, autobiographical feel, and lovable, identifiable characters. It was no surprise that Emma Watson and Ezra Miller-- he, especially-- would continue to impress me as young actors, but I would have never expected Logan Lerman to reveal equal talent in the lead role…

Jean Eustache's "The Mother and the Whore" (La maman et la putain) is a masterpiece of character study with some of the most passionately detailed, memorable dialogue ever. Jean-Pierre Léaud definitely steals the show for the former half of the film as the pedantic, ventose pseudo-philosopher Alexandre, helplessly drawn to a polyamorous life. However, as the story gradually leaves the territory of observational romantic-comedy and transgresses into a powerful carnal drama, the more impressive performances are given by Bernadette Lafont…

With the singularly compelling premise of a mysterious group offering to take over the roles of recently deceased people to provide relief for their loved ones, it came as quite the shock to me that Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos's follow-up to his 2009 Oscar-nominated "Dogtooth" (one of my all-time favorites) ultimately failed at living up to its concept.

Throughout the entirety of "Alps", I felt I was gazing in awe at a beautiful seed sadly incapable of germination. The film…

The unparalleled critical acclaim this film has been receiving is but a great big joke. This is glorified mediocrity, only serving as a mere source of entertainment to a very limited extent. A vapid, stale, cliché-ridden script featuring poorly developed archetypal characters and frequent dabs of painfully forced, self-aware humor as well as an obligatory profusion of pompous special effects DOES NOT make for a good movie. I find it sickening that so many people are convinced otherwise.

Go ahead…

Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami's "Close-Up" reminded me very much of Louis Malle's "My Dinner with Andre", in the sense that both films were excellently written character studies with incredibly engaging and reflective dialogue, despite being very flawed on the technical level. I guess it's understandable that the camera equipment wasn't at all state-of-the-art, since this movie came out of Iran, which is not exactly a First World country. Taking this into account, I was able to really enjoy this…