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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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Aching ‘NOMADLAND’ Retires Myth of American Exceptionalism

Leave it to a Chinese native to cut to the very soul of the American heartland. Inspired by Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction work “Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century,” Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Nomadland sees director Chloé Zhao (The Rider) sharpen her skill as an exposer of marginalized American truths. A ruminant tone-poem about frontierism and the warpath of capitalism on the old and aging, Nomadland uses the visual poetry of the American midwest as a backdrop for her story about Fern, a widowed gig-worker wandering the states in the run-down van she calls home.  Read More