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Wonka 2023
Likeable but rather milquetoast, this film did not really leave me feeling much (except "pleasant feelings") until the last few minutes when I was suddenly overcome by depths of emotion as music and character arc and memory brought everything together for me. I just wish I had felt more earlier.
Chalamet is easily sufficient for this role (which is a hopeful rather than acerbic Wilder version of the character) as far as song and dance goes, but that's about as…
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Poor Things 2023
I am happy to see Lanthimos finally getting the mainstream recognition he deserves. The evolution of Bella Baxter is amusing, empathetic, outrageous, disturbing, and well-told, full of the typical kinds of lines that show up in a Lanthimos film: "I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence," delivered matter of factly. It's like the quirk of this story fits his sensibilities perfectly.
Bella begins at the mercy of men in her society (and even a few women)…
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens 2015
Whether the reverberations of Lucas' first trilogy here are viewed as a homage and bridge between the old and new or as a lack of imagination will depend on one's personal tastes and the long-term intentions of the creative staff.
There is a LOT of "The Force Awakens" that echoed things we've seen before. Some of the settings seem awfully familiar even if given other names, and from a high-concept level there's not much of a plot (First Order AKA…
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Captain America: Civil War 2016
In some ways, "Civil War" scans as an Avengers movie, as it is mainly concerned with the team's future on the international level and has a huge roster of probably 13-14 heroes. (At some point, I lost count.) But somehow the Russos pull this off without really diluting the characters; everyone seems to get the amount of face time they deserve based on the dynamics of plot and relationship, and each is firmly established in terms of what they want,…