If I could explain why it hits as deep as it hits then I wouldn’t be human. But I can try. Maybe the hurt is in me; maybe it’s in the film. But the cut is deeper and it calls out to something that cannot help but respond. Maybe it’s all because I am the literal age of these kids. I was also 14-15 in 1999-2001. I have many shared experiences. I can relate to the bullying, the safe haven…
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Yi Yi 2000
There is a risk in both the simplicity and the historical context of any snapshot of modern life. Focusing on simple people in a specific place and time can create a myopic view of life that conflates mundanity with meaning. It can falsely lionize the “common man” without ever discovering deeper truths that extend beyond the specifics. Yi Yi overcomes those risks through Edward Yang’s deep humanism and relenting honesty. There is another risk, however, that can defeat even the…
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Girl, Interrupted 1999
Winona Ryder absolutely devastates here. The rest of the cast is almost as good. Jolie's Oscar can't be a surprise given the nature of the role and she's very good but everyone else is almost equally as good (including Whoopi Goldberg in a touching if under-written role).
The film itself is a sensitive and compassionate story though it's insight and ambition aren't terribly impressive in modern terms. For 1999 it is might be somewhat modern but while it avoids being…
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My Brother Jordan 2020
A sweet movie made for family and friends of the eponymous Jordan. I did not see any appeal or broader interest for the rest of us. It's a fairly uneventful story of a young man dying of cancer. Truly tragic and he was clearly loved but that doesn't make a compelling film. Turning the deeply personal into something broad enough to matter to an audience is a very very difficult thing and this movie just doesn't really go there at all.
Order of Merit: N/A
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Aftersun 2022
Look only at that last dance and you know all you need to know. It’s just three minutes combining two scenes and one song. It’s the oldest of concepts, doing what every film student tries to do: craft a montage summarizing the film and speaking all of the truths without revealing any of the answers. But it is so perfect, so precise and so powerful that it immediately enters into the recent canon of greatest final sequences. Charlotte Wells could…
