Owner of the site Mondo Digital, author, commentator, and movie junkie.
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Lux Æterna 2019
More of a free-form sketch than a real feature film, this improvised, eyeball-pummeling meditation of filmmaking and persecution emerged from the collective minds of Gaspar Noé, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and the always fearless Béatrice Dalle. That should pretty much tell you what to expect as it follows a three-act structure climaxing in one of the most physically painful-to-watch endings in movie history. mondo-digital.com/lux.html
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Firestarter 2022
Wow, people really have their knives out for this one, huh? Universal apparently had so little faith in this they even recycled the poster from the middling '84 version, and while there are flaws (including a couple of characters like Kurtwood Smith who go absolutely nowhere), director Keith Thomas takes an interesting, linear, intimate approach to the story that gives it emotional heft. The Zack Efron naysayers will never be swayed, but he's actually solid here and has good chemistry…
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The Lighthouse 2019
For years people will be debating whether this is a horror film, a dark comedy New England period piece, a twisted Americanization of the Prometheus and Sisyphus myths, and/or a bitterly amusing portrait of male aggression and (terror of) intimacy. Any way you slice it, this is a visually intoxicating and brilliantly acted two hander from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson that manages to surpass Robert Eggers' mostly excellent The Witch (or The VVitch if you wanna be all 7even about it) by sticking the landing all the way to the unforgettable final shot. Easily worth repeated viewings and one of the great macabre nautical nightmares.
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Titane 2021
Whatever Julia Ducournau's been up to in the five-year interim leading to this sophomore feature, it was totally worth it as she proves she's at the forefront of modern French filmmakers (or, well, filmmakers in general). Utterly hypnotic, provocative, and beautiful if you just go along for the ride, as well as a textbook example of what to hold back on and leave to expand in the viewer's imagination. Obviously this can be programmed down the road on twisted double features with films like Holy Motors, The Skin I Live In, Crash, Innocence, etc., but this is utterly its own beast and something you'll never forget.
