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3.5/5
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Cairo Station
(1958)
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Adam Kempenaar
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Chahine weaves characters and plotlines together as busily as passengers come and go from the title station.
Posted Aug 04, 2023
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4.5/5
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
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Befitting his paradigm-shattering protagonist, Nolan so audaciously merges form and content that he completely upends the ‘great-man’ biopic.
Posted Jul 28, 2023
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3.5/5
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Barbie
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
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Gerwig’s satire and the comedic chops of Robbie and, especially, Gosling fall into perfect rhythm once Barbie and Ken leave the candy-colored comforts of Barbie Land and Ken discovers the patriarchy.
Posted Jul 28, 2023
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3/5
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
The stunts are enough to make it a good time… They’re not enough to make it a great movie, or even a great Mission: Impossible movie. Like its AI villain, Reckoning may have become too self aware.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
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3.5/5
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
Dial poses the same question for its hero that it does for its audience: Does the world still need Indiana Jones? Fortunately for both, the answer is yes.
Posted Jul 07, 2023
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4/5
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Past Lives
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
Past Lives is the year’s other great multiverse movie.
Posted Jun 28, 2023
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4.5/5
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Asteroid City
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
For all of [ASTEROID CITY'S] artists – including Anderson, of course – the only way to deal with the chaos and uncertainty is to "just keep telling the story."
Posted Jun 28, 2023
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3.5/5
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Close to Vermeer
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
Close to Vermeer understands that great art isn’t just about the work itself – the craft, innovative techniques, and influence; it’s about the feelings a painting provokes in the individual observing it.
Posted Jun 09, 2023
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4.5/5
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A Brighter Summer Day
(1991)
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Adam Kempenaar
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Yang’s artistry evokes the sensation that you aren’t just observing these events unfold, but that you’re watching them through his eyes – as if the filmmaker was a ghost observing these characters.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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3.5/5
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Lynch/Oz
(2022)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
Lynch/Oz didn’t just offer some new details to consider about the director’s work... it fired the synapses and got me thinking about art, the movies I love, why I love them, and how they’ve become part of my DNA.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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4/5
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Adam Kempenaar
|
Into the Spider-Verse showed us that the myths and heroes we’ve created are important but mutable - they have to be. The sequel inventively and thrillingly continues that evolution.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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4/5
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Suzume
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
I was so stirred by the conceit of these pending disasters all emanating from gates that developed on sights that were once joyful places where people congregated.
Posted May 26, 2023
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4/5
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The Artifice Girl
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
It’s a film that I’m sure some will decry as too talky… I feel otherwise, for several reasons, including its clearly intentional mise en scene – the lighting, blocking, editing, and the intimacy and urgency produced by those confined spaces.
Posted May 26, 2023
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4/5
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Sans Soleil
(1982)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
"Sans Soleil" is part history lesson, part home movie travelogue, and a wholly thrilling, anxiety-inducing chronicle of human disconnection.
Posted May 19, 2023
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3.5/5
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BlackBerry
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Howerton plays Balsillie like an actual shark – perpetually on the hunt, dead-eyed and dispassionate.
Posted May 19, 2023
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3.5/5
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Master Gardener
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
“Gardener” concludes a trilogy in which the protagonists have gotten increasingly unsympathetic and decreasingly redeemable, yet the sly, subversive Schrader also made this third piece the most hopeful.
Posted May 19, 2023
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4.5/5
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The Mirror
(1975)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Tarkovsky exhibits an unmatched ability to transform the mundane into the miraculous.
Posted May 12, 2023
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2.5/5
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Beau Is Afraid
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
...is effective in putting you in this very intense nightmare/fantasy headspace where there are almost no interactions or exchanges that are imbued with compassion, or even moments of grace; everything is a full-on assault or the brief prelude to one.
Posted May 09, 2023
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3/5
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Subject
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
The film strives to create more informed, empathetic participants – audiences, filmmakers, and potential subjects.
Posted May 05, 2023
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3/5
|
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Mercifully, Gunn gives us a Phase whatever Marvel movie that is self-contained - more GCU than MCU.
Posted May 05, 2023
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3/5
|
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
There’s an undeniable propulsive energy to Pipeline… The question is how you feel about its rousing presentation upon reflection.
Posted Apr 18, 2023
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4.5/5
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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
(1974)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
In All That Heaven Allows, it’s ‘only’ class that divides them. That’s part of its elegance - and potency. Fassbinder amplifies all of the oppressive forces that conspire against this couple without compromising either.
Posted Apr 18, 2023
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4/5
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Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Jones’s film is intimate, honest, and soul-searching in all the ways a portrait of Isbell and his artistic process could only be.
Posted Apr 18, 2023
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4.5/5
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Showing Up
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Appropriate for its visual art milieu, Showing Up entreats us to carefully observe.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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3/5
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Paint
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
I appreciated not just Owen Wilson’s commitment, but the movie’s commitment to Carl as a soulful, soothing, silly artist.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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3/5
|
Air
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
The boldest thing I can say about Air is that it follows the tried-and-true underdog sports movie formula, only none of its main characters even attempt a shot much less sink the game-winner at the buzzer.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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4.5/5
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Imitation of Life
(1959)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Lana Turner is great at embodying all of these conflicting parts of [Lora]... It helps when Sirk and his DP Russell Metty know how to light her and use lighting and composition to accentuate her performance.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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3/5
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John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Chapter 4 is resoundingly the best Wick sequel – but I still prefer cold-blooded efficiency over bloody excess, no matter how artfully and, at times, playfully staged.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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4.5/5
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Sansho the Bailiff
(1954)
|
Adam Kempenaar
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Fitting for a work of this heartbreaking magnitude, Sansho’s most devastating scene is also its most beautiful.
Posted Mar 23, 2023
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5/5
|
The Big Lebowski
(1998)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
25 years later, the movie where every detail matters and doesn’t matter at all, is as hilarious as ever – and more poignant, man.
Posted Mar 23, 2023
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3/5
|
Creed III
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Creed III is too sleek, too rushed, and too contrived to deliver [all] the emotional payoffs it promises.
Posted Mar 15, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Integrity of Joseph Chambers
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Machoian and his sound designer, Peter Albrechtsen, layer those natural sounds with occasional bursts of seemingly unnatural ones, mirroring Joseph’s increasingly unbalanced psyche and maximizing tension.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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2.5
|
Magic Mike's Last Dance
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
One of the things I appreciate most about Soderbergh is his ingenuity… but even he can’t make this no-stakes show go.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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3.5/5
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Navalny
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Part political portrait, part espionage thriller - containing perhaps the most jaw-dropping phone call in the history of cinema.
Posted Feb 10, 2023
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3/5
|
To Leslie
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
As a showcase for Riseborough’s estimable talent, To Leslie succeeds.
Posted Feb 10, 2023
|
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5/5
|
Psycho
(1960)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Not that [Marion] or we are guilty of the horrors [Norman] is, but this is a movie fundamentally about shame, of which guilt is an inextricable component.
Posted Feb 10, 2023
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2/5
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Knock at the Cabin
(2023)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Like its band of zealots, Shyamalan’s movie is insistently menacing with a patina of compassion and empathy.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
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4/5
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White Noise
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Above all, it is - not surprisingly - a marriage story, and the story of a family that, in its own bizarre way, might be the most functional and relatable Baumbach has ever portrayed.
Posted Jan 16, 2023
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1.5/5
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Avatar: The Way of Water
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Overwritten, when it isn’t underwritten. Overwrought. Overblown. I’m over it.
Posted Dec 13, 2022
|
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4/5
|
RRR
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
I was expecting insane, rocket-fueled spectacle. I was not expecting an insane, rocket-fueled THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP with Ram Charan as Anton Walbrook... and N. T. Rama Rao Jr. as Roger Livesey.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
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3.5/5
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Leave it to del Toro to transform a kids’ fairy tale into a funny, sad, and resourceful rumination on obedience, the messiness of immortality, and the world’s true monsters - fascists and others who exploit the innocent.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
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2.5/5
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Empire of Light
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Earnestly crafted and intentioned, mostly avoiding over-simplifying the struggles of its characters or offering trite solutions to complicated issues – but there’s still a whiff of falseness to it.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
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4/5
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Last Flight Home
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Eli Timoner gave us a manual for how to live; documenting her father’s life and death, Ondi gives us a manual for how to say goodbye.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
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5/5
|
Grave of the Fireflies
(1988)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
It’s one thing to have a film really sadden you, but I also found it sublime in its beauty... [Setsuko and Seita's] happiness together is transcendent.
Posted Dec 07, 2022
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1.5/5
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Avatar
(2009)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
It’s not just that we’ve seen the tale before… it’s that every aspect of the screenplay is terrible.
Posted Dec 07, 2022
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3.5/5
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"Sr."
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
[Downey Jr.] has developed this construct of a movie as a means to interrogate his father... to be able to ask him things he wouldn’t normally be able to ask; the artifice allows him to probe.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
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4/5
|
The Fabelmans
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
...wants to reckon in a meaningful way with the idea that cinema – like any art form – can be powerful and revealing and magical... but [also] can be just as dishonest as it is honest.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
|
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3.5/5
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The Eternal Daughter
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Sneakily and suggestively subverts our expectations of a ghost story… to create this eerie dreamspace within which Julie finds herself.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
|
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4/5
|
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
Glass Onion is so cleverly and distressingly prescient. Some of its timeliness is serendipity; the larger share is a smart writer and director who understands that the roots of these sad farces are as old as our country.
Posted Nov 18, 2022
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3.5/5
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Nanny
(2022)
|
Adam Kempenaar
|
The way Jusu visually manifests Aisha’s pervasive dread is suffocatingly evocative.
Posted Nov 18, 2022
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