First, a small note: I wrote this about my Alien review not too long back, but this is actually the longest thing I’ve ever written on here, my perhaps-rambling attempt to write an actual review for a frequently-dismissed movie that means a lot to me. I watched and rewatched To the Wonder many times from 2013 to 2015, when its vision of romantic and religious disappointment, of displacement, struck a cathartic chord during rough years personally, and its ultimate hopefulness…
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Charulata 1964
I'm amazed once again by the elegance and delicate empathy of Satyajit Ray's filmmaking. Take the sequence where Charulata finally summons up the courage to write. First, a dot of ink on an empty page, promising and terrifying. A close-up of Charulata, deep in thought (as played by Madhabi Mukherjee, so wonderful here and in The Big City, it's an electric moment free of any self-consciousness - she fully inhabits Charulata). She scratches out a few titles in Bengali, before…
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The Heiress 1949
Olivia de Havilland's eyes and voice alone tell a complete story, harrowing and chilling.
Has one of those rare endings that feels perfectly inevitable and deeply satisfying in all its details - the click of a door bolted shut, the snip of scissors cutting a thread, the receding light of a lantern, desperate pounding and yelling met with nothing but the coldest silence - but is still so mysterious. She smiles slightly as she ascends the stairs.
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Big Trouble in Little China 1986
“Has spirit-medium powers, like the immortals...his flesh and his bones are atomized. He becomes...the dream.”
“WHAT”
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Uncut Gems 2019
Electric. The whole cast is perfect but I especially want to see the wickedly talented, one-and-only Adele Dazeem in more non-Broadway and/or Frozen things. That laugh!
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Ginger Snaps 2000
Loved this, a prime cut of early 2000s teen angst and lycanthropic metaphor. Hits the morbidly funny and gory sweet spots that any good werewolf story should, but the heart of Ginger Snaps is the tender / tragic sisterly bond at its center.
Really wish Gingerwolf would've still been wearing Katharine Isabelle's chokers post-transformation.
