THE POPE’S EXORCIST. Most — nearly all — exorcism movies come off as nasty, pale hokum, and for good reason. The Exorcist (1973) towers over all of them, the alpha and the omega, a procedural examination that presents itself without cynicism and without any seeming agenda. It does the essential work of believing its own […]
Broadway Cinema
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Sneaker Game
AIR. I went on at some length recently about the work of Ben Affleck (Director Affleck), particularly Argo (2012), both as pertains to Tetris and to the shifting focus of culture in the context of mainstream cinema. The logic therein was most likely fallacious and founded on false premises, but I can at least say […]
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The True-ish Story of Tetris
TETRIS. When, after a trying workday, my wife set about retiring to another room with a book and a cat, as is her wont, I did not intend to deter her. But when I suggested I might watch a movie based on Tetris, she stopped abruptly. When I continued that it starred Taron Egerton, she […]
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Long Live Wick
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4. Having revealed that I had been to see this at one of the earliest available showings — with the Editor and an intermediary, but that’s another story — I was asked by a friend where I would rank it in the Wick canon. I replied without hesitation, that it is No. […]
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Indie Style Over Substance
As the only thing going on at the multiplex appears to be Shazam! Fury of the Gods, a sequel based on a property that I at first assumed was some kind of joke, I did not turn up. Based on DC’s general disregard for the movie and its widely reported dismal box office, I guess […]
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Thrown Back
SCREAM VI. The world’s infatuation with Scream (1996) kicked off just as I was entering a protracted contrarian period in my own cinema education. I hadn’t yet come to appreciate the craft and silliness of horror and teen movies were too easily enjoyable to possibly be of merit; I was insufferable. Because I live in […]
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Creed III’s Decision Victory
CREED III. With his directorial debut, Michael B. Jordan has made the subtly momentous decision to render this (presumably last) chapter in the Rocky saga as a statement: This is decidedly not a Rocky movie. Sure, Balboa’s shadow flits at the edges of things, he being the somewhat unwitting progenitor of the whole works. And, […]
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Magic Mike’s Last Dance Ponies Up
MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE. It’s been a long, unexpected journey, for our hard-hustling, unworldly and undulating hero Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) and for all of us. We’ve been together for more than a decade now, tiling a roof in a Tampa swelter, swilling GHB while Richie fluffs, falling in and out of love and touring […]
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Almost Sweet/Scary Enough
SOMEBODY I USED TO KNOW. Yeah, I’ll watch a romantic comedy. As much as I may long for the unobtainable approval of the critical studies elite — simultaneously reveling in violent cinematic catharsis, celebrating genre trash and semi-privately thinking I really should watch more Akerman and Bergman — I’m a product of my environment. And […]
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You People Brings the Cringe
YOU PEOPLE. There is a cathartic release that comes with watching terrifying movies. The adrenaline, the comforting resolution, the jump scare at the end that allows us to laugh at ourselves a little. Even the lingering dread as you turn the bathroom light on later to brush your teeth is a small, morbid thrill if […]
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Tripped Out
INFINITY POOL. Because Antiviral (2012) slipped past me — and, it seems, most of us — I became aware of Brandon Cronenberg on the release of his second feature Possessor (2020), which I still (shamefully) have not seen. Despite the suboptimal timing of that movie’s debut, it helped make the writer-director’s name (beyond its substantial […]
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Aftersun is All Grown Up
AFTERSUN. “Coming of age,” outmoded notion though it may be, continues to be an object of fascination, in art as in life. In order to contextualize transition and ostensible maturation, we continue to construct and promulgate myths, demarcate arbitrary boundaries and assign significance to moments of arrival. As time marches on, though, we (the species) […]