Category: a24

Movie Review – Locke

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Locke (2014)
Written & Directed by Steven Knight

locke

Ivan Locke has just ended a day of work as a foreman on a construction site in Birmingham, England. He embarks on the drive home…or is he? Locke phones his wife while on the motorway between Birmingham and London to tell her he won’t be coming home tonight. Meanwhile, he calls another woman, Bethan who inquires about his whereabouts and how long it will be before he gets to her. He makes calls between his supervisor and a colleague in an attempt to ensure the concrete pour the next morning goes off without a hitch. Whatever Locke is doing and where ever he is going it will completely upend his life as he knew it. During this two hour drive, he attempts desperately to bridge his present with this uncertain future.

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Movie Review – Under the Skin

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Under the Skin (2014)
Written by Walter Campbell & Jonathan Glazer
Directed by Jonathan Glazer

under the skin

In the middle of the night, in a desolate stretch of road in the Scottish Highlands, an alien being arrives on our planet. This being is not here to bring a message of peace or even start a war with Earth. Her purpose is to harvest humans for consumption by her species. This involves driving around and picking up men who are alone, bringing them back to a facade of a home, and preserving them in a gelatinous liquid until they are processed. A problem begins to arise as the being starts to become interested in the emotions and experiences of these people. She finds them welcoming and warm and suddenly has an abrupt internal change of mind. But she is not a human, and this cold fact will inevitably take her down a tragic path.

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Movie Review – The Spectacular Now

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The Spectacular Now (2013)
Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Directed by James Ponsoldt

the spectacular now

Sutter Keely is a high school senior under the impression he and his girlfriend, Cassidy are the life of the party. Their relationship crashes and burns when he is caught in a compromising situation where he is honestly not cheating. However, as the film goes on, we begin to understand where Cassidy is coming from. In the meantime, Sutter goes on a bender and wakes up in the front yard of Aimee, a girl in his year. She is reserved and more studious than Sutter, but he feels drawn to her, both as a rebound and because she has such a pure caring spirit. However, Sutter begins to pull Aimee into his way of life, hiding a flask of liquor and coming to work and school at least buzzed if not more. There are also questions about Sutter’s dad and why his parents divorced. The answers will lead to the young man being forced to make tough choices about his life.

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Movie Review – The Bling Ring

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The Bling Ring (2013)
Written & Directed by Sofia Coppola

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For almost a full year between October 2008 and August 2009, homes of celebrities in Los Angeles were being robbed while their owners were absent. The culprits were a group of teenagers from Calabasas who used celebrity blogs, looking for notices that a celeb was going to be out of town for an event, to pick their marks. Led by Rachel Lee and Nick Prugo, they managed to steal $3 million in cash and belongings. Fifty homes in all were hit, with public figures like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Orlando Bloom among them. Their eventual arrests and trial made for a moderate media circus and led to one of the gang getting her own reality show on the American channel E! This is the absurd pseudo-celebrity of The Bling Ring.

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Movie Review – Spring Breakers

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Spring Breakers (2013)
Written & Directed by Harmony Korine

spring breakers

Faith and her friends are sliding into a state of monotony and apathy at college. While Faith attends class and Bible study, her friends Brit, Candy, and Cotty split their time between academics and partying. The tension of the mundane finally breaks them, and Brit and Candy rob a local restaurant to fund their trip to St. Petersburg for spring break. Faith is unaware of the criminal activities that lead her south. Once in Florida, they meet a rapper/drug dealer called Alien who begins espousing his warped reimagining of the American Dream. Faith becomes uneasy with where they have ended up with Brit and Candy become increasingly enthralled with the dangerous world they are becoming a part of. Continue reading “Movie Review – Spring Breakers”

Movie Review – Ginger & Rosa

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Ginger & Rosa (2013)
Written & Directed by Sally Potter

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It’s London 1962, and the world is feeling the effects of fear surrounding the Cold War. The most significant worry is that nuclear weapons will bring about the end of humanity. Feeling these fears is Ginger, a 17-year-old girl who is just beginning to figure out who she is and doesn’t want the world to end. She sits between her mother, Nat, who wants her daughter to become more responsible and live conventionally and her father, Roland, a free-spirited intellectual who encourages Ginger to rebel and skip school. In addition to these two influences, Ginger has her lifelong best friend, Rosa. While Ginger has succeeded in academics, Rosa has fallen behind and is making drastically different choices in life. Ginger feels pulled to that side of life but is also caught up in the movement to ban the bomb. Eventually Ginger will discover a dark secret about Rosa that threatens to upend the young woman’s life.

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Movie Review – A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III

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A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2013)
Written & Directed by Roman Coppola

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Charles Swan III (Charlie Sheen) is a successful graphic designer who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Ivana. The aftermath has him ending up in the hospital being told to watch his stress. His sister, best friend, and business manager (played by Patricia Arquette, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray respectively) come to his aid, assuaging his ego while he loses himself in flights of fancy. Charles finds his emotions ping-ponging between loving and hating Ivana, unable to make a clean break with her. He begins to suspect she is seeing someone else and gets into a series of unfunny predicaments to discover the truth.

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Movie Review – The Florida Project

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The Florida Project (2017)
Written by Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch
Directed by Sean Baker

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Moonee is a six-year-old girl living in Kissimmee, Florida with her young mother, Hailey. The pair stays at the Magic Castle, a low rung motel where Moonee pals around with her friends Scooty, Dicky, and Jancy getting into tons of trouble The hotel manager, Bobby, tries to keep things in line but finds the girl and her mother to be incorrigible. The kids are desperate for fun over this long summer and discover it where they can. Hailey keeps her daughter in the dark about their money problems but finds the stress growing.

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Movie Review – The Disaster Artist

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The Disaster Artist (2017)
Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Directed by James Franco

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Struggling actor Greg Sestero has a problem bringing out emotion in his performances. Then one night he witnesses Tommy Wiseau, a quiet man in his acting class delivers an embarrassingly over the top monologue from A Streetcar Named Desire. Greg and Tommy strike up a friendship that brings them to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams. Tommy becomes jealous as Greg gets a girlfriend, an agent, and acting parts while he struggles. This pushes Tommy to write the script for The Room which, against all the odds and logic, he produces and goes on to become a modern cult classic.

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Movie Review – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

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The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

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Dr. Stephen Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a successful heart surgeon in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has a beautiful and talented wife (Nicole Kidman) and two children, Kim and Bob. But Stephen has a secret, a secret named Martin. No one in Stephen’s family or at his hospital know about his secret meetings with Martin at a diner and their walks by the riverfront. Martin seems to have some sort of hold over Stephen. The doctor meets with him out of an obligation and endures a myriad of strange remarks and behavior from the young man. This is all connected to a sin from Stephen’s past and when he finally does get up the nerve to shrub Martin off his entire family begins to surface.

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