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  The Matrix Resurrections 2021

  Rewatched by Keith Uhlich 11 Jan 2022

  [Published as "A Moment: The Matrix Resurrections (2021)" on (All (Parentheses))]

  It's Time to Stop Posting

  I cheered when Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) flew in The Matrix Resurrections — another sublime tweak of the first Matrix’s “chosen one” simple-mindedness, which the three sequels go out of their way to upend. I’m prepared to go to my grave arguing Matrix 1’s pernicious palatability, which fostered bad-faith misreadings and actual murder, though I continue to grapple with the Wachowskis’ level of responsibility since…

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  Great Directors 2009

  Watched by Keith Uhlich 07 Jan 2022

  ★★★☆☆

  Dir. Angela Ismailos. 2009. N/R. 86mins. Documentary.

  Ask any cinephile to list their favorite directors, and you’re sure to get a few head-scratchers among the expected names. Angela Ismailos’s slight but pleasant talking-heads doc features ten such living “greats” discussing their work and profession. Great Directors unapologetically elevates a few highly subjective choices, like Richard Linklater and Stephen Frears, to the canonized company of Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch and Agnès Varda. (Catherine Breillat, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Ken Loach…

Popular reviews

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  Nomadland 2020

  Watched by Keith Uhlich 16 Oct 2020 5

  [Published as part of New Pollution #2]

  The irritatingly genteel Nomadland, adapted from a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, appears well on its way to golden statuettes and other year-end plaudits. For writer-director-editor Chloé Zhao this is the last stop before the Marvel Moloch grinds her personal stamp, such as it is, to a pre-viz’d pulp with The Eternals. I didn’t much care for the mannered neo-realism of The Rider, but at least it could fall back on the authenticity…

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  The Matrix Resurrections 2021

  Watched by Keith Uhlich 21 Dec 2021

  The cunning narrative arc of Resurrections is one of renewal in the face of rebooting. The film is well and winkingly aware of its status as a money-making property, a sequel that didn’t need to be made. And it posits that soulless motivation as a philosophical roadblock (one of many) for Neo and Trinity to overcome—with a little help from their fans. Not since Mary Martin’s Peter Pan implored a generation of young Americans to clap for a near-death Tinkerbell has there been a production with quite this level of fourth-wall-breaking earnestness.

  Read the full review at Slant Magazine