one of those movies where i'm grateful to my younger self for not getting the dvd from the library so i could see it for the first time like this
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It Lives Inside 2023
fairly well-directed, some decent scares, gnarly monster design. you can't really be mad at it. punishingly conventional though, despite the gestures at cultural specificity. the prayer repeated in hindi near the end of the film to repel the demon may as well have been "the power of christ compels you" for how familiar its deployment was. the narrative is very disney channel at times, which i wouldn't fault the movie for quite so much if some of the kills and…
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At Berkeley 2013
"in basic training, they break you down and tell you you're nothing so they can build you back up again. in berkeley, it's a two-year process."
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Gran Turismo 2023
only watched an hour of this bc an hour in i checked to see how long it was and was horrified to find i wasn't even halfway done. the first 5 minutes feature, back to back, a playstation studios logo with aloy and kratos in it, a commercial for the creator of the video game that's straight outta e3, and the title card "based on a true story" accompanied by the ps5 home screen sound effect. this is surely the most shameless 5 minutes of any film yet released this decade
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter 2023
hard to find fault with this one! not a great movie by any means but it hits the right beats, happens upon a half-handful of sick horror images, and gets you out the door without being annoying for even a moment. i wish it was a little bit gorier and maybe a little bit shorter, but it's maxed out the "does what it sets out to do"-o-meter. great dracula design and (digital?) performance too. draculas have a pretty high hit rate as monster movies go, and while this isn't in the upper echelon i think it's pretty solid.
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Boxing Gym 2010
"i love taking one right across the chin"
similar to how david lynch likes to cut new features out of the footage deleted from his films, this felt to me like an extended version of what would be a shorter segment in one of wiseman's city/community films. the focus is as restrained as the space of the gym is physically small, and even at only 90 minutes (his shortest documentary since essene all the way back in 1972!) a lot…
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The First Slam Dunk 2022
as someone currently missing the nba during its offseason, this was like water in the desert. i don't think i've ever been in a theater with as much sustained cheering as there was during this film. it really did feel like being at an actual basketball game. inoue really gets what makes basketball so naturally cinematic, the way a single move can feel eternally drawn out only to snap into a completely unexpected action. it's clearly made with a profound…
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La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet 2009
a film, imo, about how live theater is kind of creepy! i've been severely unmoved by wiseman's other performance films (Ballet and La Comedie-Francaise) but i found this one immediately arresting. it's a deeply strange film, wiseman focusing in on surprisingly unsettling images. the shadows of dancers on a dark stage linger hauntingly on curtain cables. ballerinas practice diligently as people watch them from behind a sheer fabric, looking like ghosts. there's a strange interlude featuring a beekeeper where davey…
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State Legislature 2007
a film about how, unfortunately, you have to be insane to try to affect political change.
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