Carol, and The Company That Made It

A review of the 2015 film Carol, and the unexpected cultural impact it has on cinema.   They’re right there, emerging from the darkness, before the movie even has a chance to explain itself. Those big three letters: TWC. I can’t help but notice the big TWC letters at the beginning of many recent films I’ve been catching up on. The (now disgraced) Weinstein Compa...
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Micro Review – The Shape of Water

  This shouldn’t work. But it does. It’s a movie about a mute woman who meets an amphibious/man creature. I’m not a huge Del Toro fan, but The Shape of Water is charming, it’s relevant. It’s strange, and magical, and romantic. The musical score is fantastical and lovely. I think part of what makes this movie feel magical – like a messed up fairy tale – is the way it...
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Micro Review – 10 Cloverfield Lane

  What if the crazy doomsday prepper who kidnapped you was actually right about the apocalypse? That’s the question Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character grapples with in this locked-room thriller. This was not really what I was expecting from this movie. I apparently didn’t know anything about it when I started watching it, which is often the best way to watch ...
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Review – Phantom Thread

  I think this might be brilliant. After finishing it, all I could do was think back over the course of the entire movie, picking it apart in my mind, trying to remember why something happened, or what something looked like, or how something sounded, what something might have tasted like. I feel like I not only HAVE to see this movie again, but I WANT to see it agai...
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Micro Review – A Ghost Story

I can’t remember a recent movie in which I vacillated so much between despising it and finding it bizarrely endearing. I love the ambition here. But I’m not sure it totally lives up to what the filmmaker was trying to do. There are some wonderful scenes, particularly in the latter half of the film. But the beginning’s long stretches of sustained awkwardness make it diffic...
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Micro Review – The Lost City of Z

I enjoy period pieces, and I enjoy exploration/adventure tales. This film has both of those things. The fact that this is based on a true story makes it all the more compelling. To go along with the Heart of Darkness-style journey through the dangerous Amazonian jungle, there are deep undertones of very relevant concepts from today's social climate (genderism, racism,...
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