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| BITCHSLAP STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
32487 |
| Total Ratings: |
249459 |
| Total Reviews: |
28445 |
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| PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE |
"Lookers"
Peter Sobczynski says... "Now that this year’s Oscar derby has come to its blessed conclusion, I suppose that it turned out pretty well for the most part. Sure, the notion of “Jojo Rabbit” getting the Adapted Screenplay award over Greta Gerwig’s brilliant take on “Little Women” was deeply embarrassing and I suspect that the collective delusion that Joaquin Phoenix actually won his Best Actor prize for “Walk the Line” or “The Master” instead of his hammy turn in “Joker” has already begun. For the most part, however, things went pretty well and the unexpected triumph of “Parasite” over the late-surging mediocrity of “1917” was a legitimate thrill, especially coming from the same body that awarded Best Picture to the likes of “Green Book” only one year before. However, there is one embarrassment that may indeed raise eyebrows in the future and it is the fact that “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” the rapturous romance from French filmmaker Celine Sciamma, failed to receive even a single nomination, let alone an award. From a purely analytical standpoint, this shutout is somewhat understandable—France, in a deeply questionable move, elected to put forth the immensely forgettable “Les Miserables” for the International Film Oscar instead of it and its American distributor, essentially decided to put all of its eggs into backing its other horse of the season, which just happened to be “Parasite.” If there is a consolation to all this, it is that long after all the Oscar derby details have faded from memory, viewers will still avidly be watching it and swooning over its emotional impact." (more)
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| LONG WALK, THE (2019) |
"A man should listen to his ghosts, even when they don't speak."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT BOSTON SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL 45: A fair amount of people might think "The Long Walk" takes too much time to get to the good stuff, as the really tricky genre material doesn't show up until halfway through. It's a fair critique if that's all you want from the movie, but it's a rich experience getting there." (more)
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| RIDE YOUR WAVE |
"Brings both fire and flow."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT THE 2019 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: As Masaki Yuasa's output increases, he seems to be moving away from the strange and trippy films that gained him attention and toward the conventional, though if the result is something like this sweet animated romance, that's not a bad thing. It's still distinctive and occasionally eccentric, and winds up being something fairly unique once the bits of fantasy there are kick in." (more)
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| ENTER THE FAT DRAGON (2020) |
"Donnie doesn't really need the fat suit to punch and kick a bunch of yakuza"
Jay Seaver says... "This colorful, fast-paced bit of kung fu silliness works well enough that I'm not sure why they bothered to put Donnie Yen in a fat suit. It really doesn't affect how he moves or the story at all, and there aren't even that many jokes at the expense of his character's weight. Did someone just have the remake rights to Sammo Hung's film and figure it would add 5% to the take or something?" (more)
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| SYNCHRONIC |
"The Moorhead & Benson team is 4-for-4."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT BOSTON SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL 45: The three previous feature films by the directing team of Aaron Moorehead and Justin Benson have earned them a great reputation in sci-fi/horror circles and been the sort of movies that fans build a festival schedule around, but their particular combination of meticulous construction, genre awareness, and emotional tensions has seemingly conspired to keep them from playing to a larger audience. "Synchronic" seems like a movie that could go wider; it's smart and witty and occasionally exciting without seeming quite so clearly focused on its own intricacy." (more)
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| DOWNHILL |
"Vad Ar Poängen?"
Peter Sobczynski says... "How one feels about “Downhill” will depend to a large degree on whether or not they have seen “Force Majeure,” the celebrated 2014 comedy/drama from Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund that it is based on. Granted, this is not the most startling observation to make about a remake, especially of a film of a relatively recent vintage, but in this particular case, there is a slight difference. Those who have not yet seen that original film are likely to dismiss it as just an odd and ultimately missed opportunity that contains a couple of good ideas and a couple of good performances but doesn’t have any clear idea of what it wants to do with them. Those who have seen the original, and who have therefore seen just how effective this particular material can be when in the right hands, are more like to be straight-up outraged with how thoroughly the writer/director team of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash have botched things up here in just about every possible way by transforming a wry, subtle and penetrating dark comedy about a seemingly ideal family unit whose hidden fissures are inadvertently exposed for all to see into a bigger, dumber and more crashingly obvious work that is notable only by its resounding pointlessness." (more)
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| MAN STANDING NEXT, THE |
"The President's Last Game"
Jay Seaver says... ""The Man Standing Next" is a pretty fair example of a movie that takes the known facts of recent history and stitches them together in the way that most resembles a thriller. The suspense comes as much from the craft as the pieces of that history where one doesn't know the exact details, meaning the most exciting set piece is in the middle rather than the climax. There's no mystery for many watching the film in South Korea, but at least some tension." (more)
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| PROXIMA |
"Parents in different cities is tough on kids. A mom in space..."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT BOSTON SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL 45: Among the many things that intrigue about Proxima is how the standard narrative of movies like this seem built to push the story, and the audience, in a specific direction. Lots of movies that didn't live up to their potential have made it as easy to joke about them being about "discovering what's REALLY important" as "friends we made along the way" or the like. And yet that construction works, because what counters it? [I]Proxima[/I] is at its best when it makes you wonder." (more)
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'MAYBE IT'S CLICHED, MAYBE YOU KNOW THE ENDING FROM THE FIRST SHOT ONWARDS, BUT IT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY LESS ENTERTAINING.'
- Hawkboy, On "Varsity Blues"
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