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Anora

2/21/2025

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A-

Directed by Sean Baker

Starring Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn
​
Review by Jon Kissel
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Sean Baker reaches a career crescendo with Anora, his Cinderella-meets-Uncut-Gems modern fairy tale that embodies the idea that movies are magic tricks.  The viewer knows that they are sitting in a theater or at their home watching actors being filmed in a chaotic production setting that has no relationship to what’s happening in the camera, but they’re transported anyway to feel what the actor is feeling and take in what the director is pointing the camera at.  Everyone agrees that it’s an illusion, and everyone plays along.  That agreement is at the core of Anora’s story, where a Brooklyn stripper gets entangled with a Russian oligarch scion.  He knows that she’s in the customer service industry, and she knows that he knows.  Is there ever that magical cinematic transition of transfixing teleportation, where the falseness fades away and something else takes its place?  While the viewer waits and watches for that moment onscreen, they feel it themselves over and over again through Baker’s anarchic, full-bodied, invigorating filmmaking.

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Poor Things

6/4/2024

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A-

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring Emma Stone, Marc Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe
​
​Review by Jon Kissel
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Lanthimos continues his decade-plus long streak of entertaining provocations with Poor Things.  The Greek director Yorgos has never been softer or more optimistic than he is here.  That turn towards happy endings and pure comedy is not a loss of edge but the evolving ability to apply his style of filmmaking towards something bouncier and satirical.  By far the most accessible of his films, Poor Things nonetheless looks and sounds like few others.  Based on the film’s critical and commercial success, Lanthimos cements his status as one of the most important and inventive directors in modern cinema.

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The Square

4/12/2023

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TBD

The art director of the Swedish Royal Art Museum navigates personal and professional crises.

Directed by Ruben Ostlund
Starring Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, and Terry Notary
Review by Jon Kissel

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Swedish director Ruben Ostlund makes big, heady films, and The Square is certainly one of those.  Ostlund’s Force Majeure began with a split-second decision and played out its ramifications over the proceeding runtime, interrogating the bargains that families make with each other and nothing less weighty than what it means to be a man.  For The Square, he turns his eye towards himself and creators like him, asking what is and isn’t art while also poking fun at the lifestyle of exactly the kind of person who would ask such a question.  Each scene is about many things, both for the characters and for broader society, making The Square the kind of film that encourages the viewer to try and divine what it is the director is trying to say.  That kind of intellectual work lands side by side with a film that constantly entertains in absurd conversations or broad set pieces, making The Square a delight across all cinematic avenues.


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Triangle of Sadness

3/29/2023

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TBD

A luxury yacht cruise goes horribly wrong.

Directed by Ruben Ostlund
Starring Harris Dickinson, Dolly de Leon, and Woody Harrelson
​Review by Jon Kissel

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​The film that put Swedish director Ruben Ostlund on a global stage was Force Majeure, a satirical drama about what the members of a family should expect from a father and one of the best films of the 2010’s.  When it came time for an American remake in 2020, the totally fine Downhill was made starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louise Dreyfuss, but it shaved about 40 minutes from the story, miscast Ferrell, and lost most of its nuance.  That is often the first thing to go when films get translated from abroad for American audiences.  For Ostlund’s English language debut, Triangle of Sadness, the acid-tipped director reveals what he thinks about the USA, which is that we need things spelled out for us.  If we’re behind, we can be entertained with a lot of vomit and diarrhea.  Revisiting the eat-the-rich trend that Ostlund was an early adopter of with previous film The Square, Triangle of Sadness provides an intro level course on class consciousness, wallowing in shit amidst a handful of strong performances and setpieces. 


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Everything Everywhere All at Once

2/3/2023

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B+
​3.33

A middle-aged Chinese-American woman takes a break from her laundromat business to travel across the multiverse.

Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu
​Review by Jon Kissel

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​Rick and Morty’s been cranking out episodes for years, and amidst its fast food cross-promotions and raunchy brand of science fiction, Dan Harmon and now-disgraced Justin Roiland have made the ur-multiverse text.  They seem to be the only film/TV writers that are engaging with what it would mean if infinite possibilities existed and were within one’s grasp.  Marvel’s attempts to do anything with the concept look shameful and pathetic next to Rick and Morty’s imagination.  Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, otherwise known as Daniels, come closest with their gonzo sci-fi epic Everything Everywhere All At Once, a film so packed with large- and small-scale ideas that if one’s not working, the viewer need only wait a minute for a new one to be introduced.  This kitchen sink approach makes for a singular moviewatching experience, though the takeaway still comes off as less-than if the viewer’s head contains dozens of episodes of a portal-gun wielding scientist and his grandson cavorting through the multiverse.


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