A terrible post-awards winter at the local box office has been punctuated by two very different takes on the "be gay, do crimes" genre: DRIVE AWAY DOLLS bowed first with an acerbically silly tone that alienated audiences on both sides of the aisle. Cooler-than-cool posturing aside, DAD could be credited with deliberately invalidating the threat of aggrieved male violence within its world-building, positing all of its male characters as either helplessly paranoid or entirely unassuming fools. LOVE LIES BLEEDING drives…
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Shin Kamen Rider 2023
Draws an interesting line where, at times, I'm compelled by Anno's obsessions and, in other moments, his typical fixations suffocate what otherwise might be a more dynamic and surprising film. There's more to connect with than not, admittedly - among the more exciting ideas, I found the villain "removing all bad thoughts" as a means of mind control tidily connects to Anno's pet themes around depression as well as being pretty resonant with how people craft their social media algorithm…
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Midsommar 2019
At a Q&A afterwards, Aster remarked that he only had these two horror films banked among his old screenplays and otherwise had a lot of other genres in mind he's eager to tackle. It's kind of incredible he doesn't have hundreds of more horror films banked though because thus far, they're incredibly interchangeable. It's almost stunning how much this plays like a Madlibs version of HEREDITARY (or vice versa) and yet somehow gets even more of a pass from certain…
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Crimes of the Future 2022
Been a moment since there was a sci-fi picture that didn't take place either in our distant future or a long, long time ago. Shot in all of the parts of Greece that look haunted yet thoroughly lived-in (just out of sight of the nearest McDonald's, I imagine), CRIMES OF THE FUTURE crafts its own delightfully distinct moral universe separate from our own, without judgment or sanctimonious reverence. A willingness to be voyeuristic is all it asks of its audience…