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drawkward86

drawkward86
Member Since
25 Nov 2008
N/A
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150
Films
3
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88
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Starred reviews
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150
Films
3
Shorts
See all ratings
0
Recent ratings
88
Minireviews
52
Starred reviews
Featured Reviews
77 50%
A Woman Under the Influence
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) - Rated 28 Dec 2010
"Don't worry about me. I'm a grown-up. I'm fine." A terrifyingly real, dissonant duet between two of the most disturbingly sick yet recognizable characters ever. Despite coming in at what is, on paper, an absurd running time, the film is infused with a sense of dread and all-too-relatable anxiety that never lets up. Captures the maddening inscrutability that makes complex domestic problems so hard to solve. Messy and imperfect (would you really prefer the alternative?), but unforgettable.
95 89%
Elephant
Elephant (2003) - Rated 05 Jan 2011
Probably the closest anyone will ever get to making sense of Columbine, simply because it doesn't try to make sense of it. GVS understands that that's a dead-end road. To call it irresponsible is to be blind not only to that, but to the meaning of the real-life shootings and their aftermath. The lack of real actors among the cast can be distracting, but it's better than the alternative, and gives it chilling authenticity. This is the only high school I've ever seen on film that felt real.
47 14%
Precious
Precious (2009) - Rated 26 Dec 2010
Very, very well acted misery porn, but misery porn nonetheless. Mo'Nique is fantastic, as are Sidibe, Carey, and Patton, but the film is rambling past the point of episodic to being insanely disjointed, the moralizing is too easy, the optimism is forced and treacly, and Daniels' direction seemed amateurish to me, using gimmick upon gimmick (the talking photos, the music video montages, the Two Women scene, to name but a very few) as a poor substitute for true insight into Precious's psyche.
91 80%
Hunger
Hunger (2008) - Rated 25 Dec 2010
Harrowing, irreverent, fearless, virtuosic, inimitable, beautiful, unforgettable. Steve McQueen shows himself a true artist; in the hands of a more experienced director, this could have been a film with more technical proficiency and a screenplay that obeyed the traditional laws of character arc and continuity, and as such, would have been another above-average movie about the Irish Troubles to throw on the pile. Cheers to McQueen for having the balls to make the movie he wanted. It's great.
80 55%
Hated: G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies
Hated: G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies (1994) - Rated 28 Dec 2010
"For every indulgence, there was something else he denied himself as a means to the end." Captures his aesthetic, finds real meaning in his nihilism, and balances the more revolting facts of his persona with the appeal his total rejection of everything has to anyone who's ever felt alienated. GG himself seems to be the only one in the film who can sum up what he was really about, and does it with disarming eloquence: "My mind's a machine gun, my body's the bullets, the audience is the target."