Categories
Review

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

The Darjeeling Limited has a reputation as a minor Wes Anderson work

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Review

The Big Lebowski (1998)

A layer under the surface, stoner comedies and hard-boiled detective stories actually have a lot in common

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Review

Garden State (2004)

Garden State’s reputation has fallen out of favor in the 18 years since its release, and understandably so.

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Review

Casablanca (1942)

“Is it really that good?” I wondered as I hit play for the first time in a decade.

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Review

The Truman Show (1998)

I recently read Ed Sikov’s Film Studies: An Introduction, and one early point he makes is that everything we see in cinema, even the most vérité and naturalistic scenario, is, to some extent, constructed. Everything seen and heard is placed in front of us for a specific reason.

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Review

12 Angry Men (1957)

Few movies have endured with such a sterling — even ascendant — reputation as 12 Angry Men.

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Legacy Review

Up (2009)

Up is among the most uneven films from Pixar’s imperial phase, but still pretty close to a masterpiece.

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Review

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I’d have less of an objection to the gnarly thematic weirdness of Saving Private Ryan if the film didn’t rub our face in it

Categories
Review Legacy

Shrek (2001)

Shrek is almost impossible to evaluate at face value. You can mark it lower for creating the lazy “celebrity voice cast + pop culture reference” formula of animated comedy; you can mark it higher for millennial nostalgia (this was the default movie substitute teachers turned on when I was in high school); you can mark it lower OR higher for its over-saturation in memes and pop culture.

Categories
Legacy Revision Candidate Review

WALL·E (2008)

I’ve always had a hard time figuring out just where to place WALL·E in the Pixar pantheon for a couple reasons, the biggest of which is that WALL·E is a rare masterpiece that gets steadily worse across its runtime. The more the movie focuses on the fat humans and environmentalism parable, the more it feels like a run-of-the-mill good movie; and the less it feels like a generationally profound piece of cinema.