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Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
I won’t pretend this is a movie for everyone. You need to like modern classical music or I suspect you will find this film interminable and probably sleep inducing. But if you check that box, Opus is an intimate private piano recital in your living room. It’s a 1hr 40minute concert with nothing but Sakamoto…
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Remembering Gene Wilder
There is a wonderful story in Remembering Gene Wilder about making The Producers. Brooks worked on it for years before getting it off the ground, and he’d wanted the not-at-all-famous Gene Wilder to be Leo Bloom after seeing him on stage and doing a reading of the first scenes. But when Zero Mostel was cast…
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Godzilla Minus One
I’m not a Godzilla fan though I’ll admit to a soft-spot for Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla. So I came to GMO with mixed expectations. The reviews were sterling. The franchise not so much. And when all was said and done and Tokyo was saved, I leaned toward the reviews. The best parts of Godzilla Minus…
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Bob Marley: One Love
When it comes to Bob Marley, I’m of that typical class of loose fan who know next to nothing about someone except their most famous work. From that perspective, One Love will both reward and frustrate you. Kingsley Ben-Adir (impossibly handsome and showing none of the real-world mileage of Marley) is damn good: charismatic, funny,…
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The Blue Angels
Can a documentary that is exactly what you expected ever be good? The Blue Angels is here to answer that question – at least if you love spectacular flying and wildly gung-ho fliers. All that’s missing is the Top Gun Anthem and Take My Breath Away. But hey, you do get “The Blue Angel Creed”…
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American Fiction
It would be hard to imagine a more convincing send-up of modern leftist attitudes on race than American Fiction. Every moment of the plot that focuses on My Pafology (or Fuck as it comes to be called) is laugh out loud funny and spot on. Cutting without being cruel and only occasionally a bit broad,…
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Apocalypse Now (Redux)
“Saigon. Shit. I’m only still in Saigon.” There was a time when I knew almost every line of dialogue in Apocalypse Now but it’s been a few years since I last watched it. The director’s cut currently on Max is NOT the best version. It’s larded down with two extended scenes that were mercifully cut…
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Anselm
It was Wim Wenders not Anselm Kiefer that drew me to watch the documentary Anselm. I knew next to nothing about his work and, if I had known, probably wouldn’t have been that big a fan. But Wenders’ uses the camera to get inside Anselm’s work and make you experience it. Even the paintings seem,…
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The Three Body Problem
My (fairly stupid) rule of thumb when it comes to a TV miniseries is that I will only watch it if I have read and enjoyed the book it’s based on. Three Body Problem qualifies, though it’s probably the only trilogy I’ve read where the first book is my least favorite. Still, this is a…
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Harakiri
A meditation on honor that captures its essence and its danger. Though wrapped in the form of a vengeance movie, the suspense is genuine and you never quite know exactly how it’s going to come out. Nor does the ending disappoint – though in some respects it definitely DOES disappoint. No spoilers, but…justice? Forget it,…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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