Tag: Opinion
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Aquaman Review — My man
Shortly after my screening of Aquaman I was chatting with someone who was considering going to see it. ‘I’m not too sure yet, people have told me it’s cringy.’ ‘I wouldn’t say “cringy”,’ I replied, ‘but it’s definitely silly.’
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Sorry to Bother You Review — Call out
I worked in a call centre for several years. So when, in the very first scene of this movie there’s this archly framed shot of Lakeith Stanfield’s hero in front of a noticeboard on which the contextless word ‘You’ is prominently displayed — I felt that. As he begs for a job with his fraudulent…
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Mortal Engines Review — No traction
Mortal Engines was like the YA book series with the best politics. Maybe it was tied with A Series of Unfortunate Events, but those books didn’t go too hard with praxis. These were books that were fervently anti-capitalist and anti-nationalist, written from a clearly defined Anarcho-Communist perspective. Sure, the conceit of autonomous, mobile city states…
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The Old Man and the Gun Review — Shots fired
The Old Man and the Gun is shot on a very creamy stock of 16mm film. It makes everything in this film look soft. When Robert Redford ambles into the frame with a crooked smile and a gimlet eye, the air around him crackles. He is a very kindly man who also so happens to…
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review — Getting meta
See now, I remember back in 2013 I saw the trailer for The Lego Movie. I had seen Jump Street at that point, but not Cloudy and Lord and Miller weren’t really a directorial team that I was following. I didn’t know if the film was going to be any good, but I knew I…
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Creed II Review — Tainted legacy
There are like a bunch of really good movies that I don’t really have an interest in watching because of their proximity to dads. Like, I love a lot of Rob Reiner films but have little to no interest in watching Stand By Me because it amounts to the favourite film of like half of…
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Ralph Breaks the Internet Review — Wreck it baby
At university I wrote my dissertation on the similarities between postmodern theatre and video games. Sort of taking what Auslander wrote about in Liveness and reflecting it back; analysing how design is being increasingly influenced by the performative desire of players. As a part of that I looked at Alternate Reality Games, comparing their successes…
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The Girl in the Spider’s Web Review — Grabbed cash
So, in the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 there’s a scene where the hypoglycemic hero has a drop in his blood sugar level and collapses on the ground. Kevin James, giving an unconvincing physical performance, must flail around the lobby of the Vegas hotel where the film takes place until a child’s melting ice…
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Robin Hood (2018) Review — Medieval leftists
I listen to a lot of podcasts, I always did before but now that I drive to my new job having to concentrate on the road means that I’m not able to skip the adverts. There’s one app that is being pimped everywhere recently called robinhood, a cursory search informs me that it is stylised…
A Grand Quiet 