Another of Hawks' fun, convivial, warmhearted hangout sessions, but certainly not the equal of Only Angels Have Wings and Rio Bravo. There's something more awkward and ungainly about the shape of this film, and how some moments land heavily. The safari footage is pretty remarkable, but it was kind of hard to shake the colonialism of it all. I was rooting for the rhino. Pockets is a worthy successor to the Stumpy role in Rio Bravo. And I love Baby Elephant Walk.
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Tommy 1975
Very weird in that distinctly 70s way. There's something to this type of aesthetic experimentation that can feel cheesy now, but I'm sure it was quite impactful in its day. I get a similar feeling with some Roeg and Boorman too. The episodic structure accentuates even more how this feels like a precursor to music videos.
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Captain America: Civil War 2016
For the life of me I can't understand how fans find anything to give a shit about in these films.
There's no personality, no stakes, no energy on display from either the cast or the directors. In the Russo brothers, I think Marvel have found their ideal directors: artless, visionless servants of an episodic TV structure. The action isn't exactly unintelligible (Marvel films are too insidious to be completely unsound), but it's passionless: hyperkinetic yet perfunctory. The Russo brothers' "style"…
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Silence 2016
Both experiential and texturally rich as well as intellectually alive. Silence is built around a series of religious tests, moral riddles whose consequences grow more and more thorny. Or rather, the film burrows deeper and deeper into manifestations of the same dilemma: the stubborn pride of conviction and the distance between heart and action. It's an extremely complex exploration of these ideas, but the film is tactile as well as brainy. Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography beautifully captures the indifference of the…
