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Clunky ‘ETERNALS’ Reveals Chloé Zhao Ill-Suited for Marvel Universe

Nomandland writer-director and Academy Award-winner Chloé Zhao is celebrated as a humanist, naturalistic storyteller. A filmmaker who sinks into the very pores of the characters and communities she crafts her movies around. Telling stories from a deep understanding of what make these people tick and the idiosyncratic customs of their way of life, Zhao champions the use of non-actors and the backdrop of mother nature to achieve a lived-in, grounded aesthetic. With Zhao’s films, you often feel as if you’ve stepped into another universe, one that’s been squirreled away on some part of our planet we just didn’t know existed. Read More

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Stunningly Mounted ‘1917’ A Towering Technical Achievement 

Just when you think that there is no new angle for a war movie, English tag-team director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins come and shake the whole thing up. Deakins, who has shot such remarkable-looking films as Blade Runner 2049, Fargo, Skyfall, Sicario, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and No Country for Old Men among literal countless others, commands the aura of a film in a way that few other cinematographers can and paired with Mendes’ seamless one-take presentation of this WWI epic, 1917 amounts to a striking piece of capital C cinema, and one that presents a unique ground-level take on war. Set against countless wowing technical merits, the WWI epic recounts a powerful personal journey through a hellish war-scape that will leave audiences gasping for breath. Read More

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Out in Theaters: CINDERELLA

From the first time they put pen to paper, the House of Mouse changed things. Classics from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty capitalized on groundbreaking innovation, brokered a new medium for entertainment and launched the phenomenon of the Disney princess, a cultural landmark that lasted for decades. Maybe it was my being a teenager and all, but from what I gathered, that cultural landmark dried up around Y2K, petering out with a string of computer animated duds. Dinosaur, Atlantis, Brother Bear and Chicken Little all represented a low point for the imaginative power of the ubiquitous studio, especially when juxtaposed with the meteoric rise of Pixar. With a certifiable hit in Princess and the Frog reviving the old-fashioned charm of the Disney engine a year earlier, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland arrived on the scene to dominate the box office to the tune of a billion dollars. Dollar signs in their eyes, the once great studio turned its attention to recycling old mainstays with new CGI to the collective groan of people everywhere. Read More