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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 2019
Remember how in The Last Jedi, when brother and sister are finally reunited, Luke and Leia's theme plays and it's beautiful and touching and meaningful? In The Rise of Skywalker it plays over Lando talking to Jannah, a character he's never met before, because they needed something to fill the space.
This little moment—the movie doing all it can to induce meaning through the brute force of nostalgia without context—is repeated again and again throughout the film's runtime. In The…
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Cats 2019
My audience burst into laughter at the very first shot. The one time that laughter started to die midway through, during a Very Serious scene, some guy in the back said "Imma get some snacks" and it was like a dam broke. We applauded as he left and howled for a solid minute.
This movie is a fucking gift, and if the world is just it will replace The Room as shorthand for jaw-droppingly bad art creating joy
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 2019
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion -
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The Empire Strikes Back 1980
Remains striking all these years later primarily because it's the only Star Wars movie to operate on dream logic for a significant extent of its runtime. Dagobah starts that dream-time feeling—for most of the film we have no conception of how quickly time is passing. Luke could be with Yoda for days or months, the Falcon trapped in the slug's belly and then limping to Bespin at the same foggy clip. That atmosphere, along with all the metaphysical stuff that…
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Charlie's Angels 2019
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was warping feminism into brand material.
In awe of how cursed this is. Not an ounce of filmmaking talent on display, but it literally ends on the revelation that RBG is an angel which I guess is supposed to make it an uncriticizable yas-queen powerhouse. At least K-Stew got paid.
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The Trump Prophecy 2018
First Reformed: "Who are you?"
The Trump Prophecy: "I'm you but stronger in every possible way."
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National Theatre Live: Fleabag 2019
(Ooh, is LB allowing these again? Better get my rating in while it lasts.)
Just to choose my side in the Discourse: haven't seen the show but liked the play! Coulda done without the gross fatphobic bit, but "really slutty pizza" is henceforth gonna be a regular part of my vocabulary.
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