Dolittle - A Bizarre and Expensive Mess

Dolittle - A Bizarre and Expensive Mess

The climax of this movie involves Robert Downey Jr. shoving a leek up a dragon’s ass to remove skeletons and bagpipes from its rectum. The dragon thanks him by farting in his face. In another scene, a tiger named Barry gets kicked in the balls by a gorilla and cries “My Barry berries!”. Dolittle is both the life and death of cinema.

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My Hindu Friend - A Surreal and Moving Story

My Hindu Friend - A Surreal and Moving Story

My Hindu Friend is the final movie from Argentina-born Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco. He was the first Latin American to ever be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars. This movie details the time in his life when he underwent extensive medical treatment for cancer, and contemplated life, death, and the point of either one. Sounds like a downer, but Babenco infuses moments of grotesquely funny surrealism into the film. Thanks to a stunning performance from the always amazing Willem Dafoe, it’s a beautiful send off for a historical director.

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Atlantics - A Haunting Senegalese Romance Turned Ghost Story

Atlantics - A Haunting Senegalese Romance Turned Ghost Story

This Senegalese film, which won second place at the Cannes Film Festival, is really something else. It’s a bittersweet romantic tale, a chilling ghost story, and a howl of rage against unjust capitalist and patriarchal constructs. Showing a side of the ever-growing refugee / migrant crisis that isn’t normally seen, it’s a film that shouldn’t be missed.

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I Lost My Body - A Melancholic Look at Loss

I Lost My Body - A Melancholic Look at Loss

It’s so rare that we receive an animated film this unorthodox. In I Lost My Body, the feature-length debut of animator, writer, and director Jérémy Clapton, a disembodied hand becomes sentient and escapes from a Parisian medical lab, setting out on a quest to find its long lost body, and become whole again. It sounds silly, even a little macabre, but this French animated picture is surprisingly beautiful, and deeply moving.

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Frozen II - Bold, Bloated, and Beautiful

Frozen II - Bold, Bloated, and Beautiful

Frozen II bites off a good bit more than it can chew. The movie just isn’t long enough to bring all of its plot lines, characters, and conflicts together in a fully satisfying way. But it has far higher aspirations than the original, and its more mature and moodier themes and music, combined with stunning imagery and animation, make it hard not to feel something, or a lot of things, while watching it. It’s more of a sensory experience than anything, and I love and appreciate the more abstract approach it attempts. Very much worth the watch.

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Charlie's Angels - Too Generic to Be Much Fun

Charlie's Angels - Too Generic to Be Much Fun

I am not the target audience for this movie so my opinion on it may not amount to much, but regardless, I still have one. This new Charlie’s Angels is missing all the campy, tongue-in-cheek fun of the ones that came before, most notably the 2000 version. That movie, amongst its hilarious and absurd sleaziness, is actually very clever about its critique of men and its representation of feminism. This movie, however, feels far too shallow, like it’s checking off boxes of what feminism is supposed to be without bothering to dig any deeper. It’s also just not very fun, or funny.

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