Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Breathtaking and mesmerizing in more ways than one.
Lanthimos’ signature wide lenses distort what is already a carnivalesque fairy tale, transforming the grotesque into the beautiful, and the dull into radiant.
Meanwhile, Stone’s child-like Bella experiences in brief the full spectrum of life–joy, awe, terror, individual consciousness and identity forming–and shares this wonder in an oddly satisfying and unexpectedly humanistic way.
93/100 – Amazing.
American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)
Unironically on point, but not revolutionary.
While American Fiction is insightful, its social commentary is undermined by its self-diminishing comedic tone and perfunctory family drama. It took one step too far and fell into the kool-aid it was trying to tip over.
73/100 – Good.
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
Triet’s chamber-like drama inspects complex human relationships by drawing out pieces of information one keeps to oneself, positing that even amongst family one experiences an ultimately solo life.
87/100 – Excellent.
The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)
Payne offers us a place in time to immediately connect with, but the film’s aesthetics shadow realism with vanity and The Holdovers as a result only marginally succeeds in delivering resonance past this “while watching” kinship.
78/100 – Very Good
Memory (Michel Franco)
Two of my favourite performances in 2024.
Chastain’s nuanced portrayal of a woman haunted by her past, and Sarsgaard’s depiction of a life without memory, poignantly illustrate how trauma can be remedied by love in the present.
86/100 – Excellent.
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
Scorsese and DiCaprio perfunctorily release a film that would be largely ignored if not for their respected yet languishing careers.
74/100 – Good.
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Glazer effortlessly commands the viewer’s experience through the progression of sound and cinematography, slowly narrowing one into a breathless inertia, awestruck and bewildered, made ever-more harrowing in its stark simplicity.
93/100 – Amazing.
May-December (Todd Haynes)
A couple of tour-de-force performances. Natalie Portman playing an actress imitating an actress, with all three layers apparent and yet in fugue, deserves the Oscar nod it nay received.
84/100 – Great.
Aesthetics Of The Mind 