all I want for Christmas: curated cinema holiday countdown #12
An Advent calendar of holiday movies to fulfill heartfelt desires.
Brazil
daily stream: condemned to repeat the past, etc…
2017’s The Death of Stalin is on Hulu and Kanopy in the US, Prime and Apple TV in the UK.
Songbird movie review: screechingly out of tune
An appalling melange of insipid disaster drama and implausible romance with a bit of dystopian satire thrown in. This is a crass cash-in meant to prey on our pandemic anxieties, not grapple with them.
Unsane movie review: is she or isn’t she?
As a piece of craft, this is a smack in the face to Hollywood’s bloated blockbusters. As a piece of pulp, it brings a sharp, smart feminist twist to familiar tropes of cinematic paranoia.
The Death of Stalin movie review: the great dictator
Audacious, outrageous, bleakly funny. Not since Charlie Chaplin sent up Hitler and invited us to laugh at terrible reality has there been a movie like this.
Jupiter Ascending movie review: princess drearies
Sees no need to engage metaphor or dispense with cliché, so when you haven’t seen it before, you can’t believe what you’re seeing. And not in a good way.
Snowpiercer movie review: hunger train
Hauntingly grim, full of appalling ironies and awful truths. This is most definitely not the feel-good movie of the summer.
QOTD: Has pop culture given us an unrealistic idea of what a police state looks like?
While many people would likely agree that films such as 1984 and Brazil are horrifying depictions of police states — and they are — relatively few people seem bothered by the realities we’re living with today…
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (review)
Once in a while a film comes along that demonstrates how pig-headedly sexist Hollywood is when it comes to ignoring female perspectives.
Upside Down (trailer)
Kirsten Dunst says “kind of like an accessible Brazil.” Brazil isn’t accessible? *facepalm*
