irony

Don’t Look Up

Well sure it’s obvious. Sure, there are much better movies to compare it to. Sure, it’s not that funny. But maybe it’s not a comedy. Maybe it’s just a tragedy – a dramatic form contemporary audiences aren’t so familiar with.

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Don’t Look Up

Well sure it’s obvious. Sure, there are much better movies to compare it to. Sure, it’s not that funny. But maybe it’s not a comedy. Maybe it’s just a tragedy – a dramatic form contemporary audiences aren’t so familiar with.

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Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler crawls over the line where news eats itself, not just blurring the report and the reporter but selling a kind of news that is self-creating, like reality television, with hapless unpaid actors forced to play out scenarios of some network

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Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler crawls over the line where news eats itself, not just blurring the report and the reporter but selling a kind of news that is self-creating, like reality television, with hapless unpaid actors forced to play out scenarios of some network

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Westworld (1973)

Michael “high concept” Crichton directs the film of his own screenplay (no novel this time). It becomes very clear where the idea for The Terminator came from as we watch Yuul Brynner reincarnate his The Magnificent Seven character in the form

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Westworld (1973)

Michael “high concept” Crichton directs the film of his own screenplay (no novel this time). It becomes very clear where the idea for The Terminator came from as we watch Yuul Brynner reincarnate his The Magnificent Seven character in the form

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Jodorowsky’s Dune

In this epic yarn, the filmic equivalent of Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Alejandro Jodorowsky, wild-eyed, possessed, regales us with the story of his five year mission to bring Frank Herbert’s Dune to the screen. It’s an extraordinary chronicle of

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Jodorowsky’s Dune

In this epic yarn, the filmic equivalent of Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Alejandro Jodorowsky, wild-eyed, possessed, regales us with the story of his five year mission to bring Frank Herbert’s Dune to the screen. It’s an extraordinary chronicle of

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Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coens tell a story of the man who would not be Bob Dylan with such relentless unapologetic deflation that it actually feels like something out of the end of the sixties, like Midnight Cowboy or Medium Cool or Easy Rider (all

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Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coens tell a story of the man who would not be Bob Dylan with such relentless unapologetic deflation that it actually feels like something out of the end of the sixties, like Midnight Cowboy or Medium Cool or Easy Rider (all

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Her

Technologically mediated relationships are the setting but not entirely the point here, because it seems Her is actually the first great movie about the technological Singularity since that term entered common parlance. And the idea being couched as a love story, albeit

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Her

Technologically mediated relationships are the setting but not entirely the point here, because it seems Her is actually the first great movie about the technological Singularity since that term entered common parlance. And the idea being couched as a love story, albeit

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Safe House

The trilogy of this, Training Day and Man on Fire (let’s overlook The Book of Eli) mounts a strong case for Denzel Washington being today’s front running hollywood BAMF and you didn’t even notice. Maybe a cage match with Vincent

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Safe House

The trilogy of this, Training Day and Man on Fire (let’s overlook The Book of Eli) mounts a strong case for Denzel Washington being today’s front running hollywood BAMF and you didn’t even notice. Maybe a cage match with Vincent

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Goon

This thing threatens so much near-greatness its not immediately clear what’s holding it back. Sean William Scott (yes, Stifler) is barely recognisable, holds the lead spot effortlessly and earns a career reboot with help from a semi stellar indiewood cast

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Goon

This thing threatens so much near-greatness its not immediately clear what’s holding it back. Sean William Scott (yes, Stifler) is barely recognisable, holds the lead spot effortlessly and earns a career reboot with help from a semi stellar indiewood cast

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Carnage

Middle class pretences of civility take a beating as parents debate the correct thing to do after their kids have a violent altercation. Predictably, despite all intentions to the contrary, the parents’ altercation is far more grim. Amusing, but beyond a

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Carnage

Middle class pretences of civility take a beating as parents debate the correct thing to do after their kids have a violent altercation. Predictably, despite all intentions to the contrary, the parents’ altercation is far more grim. Amusing, but beyond a

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The Help

Has there been a bad film about the US civil rights movement? The most self critiical nation on earth once again finds its terrible race karma a bottomless wellspring of pungent narrative. Does amply what it sets out to do

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The Help

Has there been a bad film about the US civil rights movement? The most self critiical nation on earth once again finds its terrible race karma a bottomless wellspring of pungent narrative. Does amply what it sets out to do

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The Iron Lady

Thatcher without the thatcherism? It’s been described thus but the thatcherism is actually right there in the opening scene as a pinstriped yuppie queue-jumps doddering Maggie at the corner shop. Meryl earns her oscar and maintains a tradition of wins

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The Iron Lady

Thatcher without the thatcherism? It’s been described thus but the thatcherism is actually right there in the opening scene as a pinstriped yuppie queue-jumps doddering Maggie at the corner shop. Meryl earns her oscar and maintains a tradition of wins

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