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| 80 74% |  |
Chan Is Missing (1982) - Rated 19 May 2021
"Spotty acting (save the wonderful Wood Moy) does little to detract from the vivid and unique depiction of a culture, place, and time. Wang's script reportedly underwent some fairly major revisions from a more opaque structuralist treatment (he felt duty-bound not to let the first fully Chinese-American feature disappear up its own ass) but his noirish tale is still full of probing--and noncommercial--digressions on language, identity, and socioeconomic conflict. Edifying and enchanting."
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| 85 81% |  |
The Smashing Machine (2002) - Rated 27 Oct 2024
"With Randy Couture, Kerr is perhaps the most intelligent, articulate, and plain likable athlete mixed martial arts has produced, qualities which combined with his earnestness and vulnerability make this a uniquely wrenching exploration of addiction (not merely to drugs) and the nature and spectacle of bloodsport. Superb editing and use of music throughout; the presentation of the final match is a masterclass in reworking live footage for theme and narrative. Safdie-Johnson adaptation now pls"
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| 75 64% |  |
Kurt & Courtney (1998) - Rated 01 Jul 2024
"The cultural ascension of Courtney Love from scene pariah to ersatz Patti Smith is one of the great PR triumphs of our time. Doubtless she was the subject of some dubious reporting; also that she's promised/perpetrated more violence on more women than most MeToo'd men. More than other Broomfields this is defined by the circumstances of production, Love's sabotage adding sad ironies about the commodification of alt culture and the mafiazation of media. More great human comedy: those PIs, my lord."
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| 90 89% |  |
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) - Rated 04 Sep 2021
"The saddest movie about being funny and the funniest movie about being miserable. I loved every wittily weepy second."
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| 80 74% |  |
Heartland (1979) - Rated 13 Feb 2024
"A pair of great lead performances (with an unusually good supporting child) and vivid evocation of setting anchor this anti-romance (which is still a romance in a way that, say, MCCABE & MRS. MILLER isn't) of a time and place where the notion of romantic love was much more bound up in practical considerations and shared intimate knowledge of the physical realities of life and death. Doesn't quite reach the highs of Altman or Malick but hits some pretty unique notes of its own."
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| 95 95% |  |
My Dinner with Andre (1981) - Rated 23 Jul 2024
"The standard for integrating satirical/critical comment into a sincere and moving (and talky) exploration of human communication, yearning, and folly. I know that might sound oddly specific. And I don't know that this beats MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S or CLAIRE'S KNEE, both of which I love, or THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE, which I still haven't seen. But FUCK, pre-dinner Wally in the subway, eyes closed, train speeding past. And the presence of the waiter, cutting and exquisitely unforced...counterpoint?"
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| 85 81% |  |
Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1995) - Rated 30 Jun 2024
"Broomfield is uniquely open in revealing the processes behind not only his films' constructions, but the manipulation of people and events to his own benefit. His journalistic skills are shown in the kind of interactions now very rare: watch here his less-than-good-faith feints searching for cracks in the principals' contradictory stories. He offers no overripe Moorean snark in handing over cash for comment, merely shows the act and lets the audience provide the punchline (my best? Daryl Gates)."
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| 90 89% |  |
Quai des Orfèvres (1947) - Rated 30 Oct 2023
"For pure pleasure the best of the four Clouzots I've seen. Also for varied and interesting portrait of humanity. The broad strokes stop at potboiler, but oh those finer strokes! Jenny coming around to sing *at* the woman in the audience. "I'm sorry, madame. We can't beat them," c'mon. "You're just my type. When it comes to women...we'll never have a chance." As the film transcends genre, Dora transcends the tragic lez trope. A tender and sympathetic treatment (and she'll be aiiiiiiiiiiight)."
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| 85 81% |  |
West Side Story (1961) - Rated 05 Jun 2024
"The notion of the gangs somehow being portrayed in a seamier and more "realistically" violent manner while still in a musical context is interesting to ponder (might be time to re-watch Ferrara's CHINA GIRL, which I likely overrated in my exuberant youthiness), but at key moments the staging and photography manage to communicate some kind of vitality beyond the frivolity. In another sense, the dancing seems sufficient justification for the rest. Though I must side with the detractors on Wood."
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| 45 21% |  |
Skyscraper (2018) - Rated 06 Sep 2020
"Sometimes it's hard for me to watch Rock movies 'cause I'm mostly just picturing him having sex with everybody else in the movie. It's so much more visually interesting than what's usually on screen. This probably comes the closest yet to aligning the two, our fuck-shy Adonis ascending a giant phallic symbol to which he is "biometrically connected" to get access to a giant clitoral symbol, his clever manipulation of which is the thing that finally gets his wife to say "I love you" back."
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