8 years ago
All posts by Christopher Runyon
LAFF Review: ‘Short Term 12’ is Cinema At Its Most Beautiful, Compassionate, and Human
There have been many films about at-risk teens receiving guidance from a surrogate parental figure, from Stand and Deliver to Freedom Writers to The Blind Side. A lot of these movies tend to feel false because they're too wrapped up with waterboarding the audi...
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The David Lynch Retrospective: ‘Blue Velvet’
The Movie Mezzanine Filmmaker Retrospective series takes on an entire body of work–be it director’s, screenwriter’s, or otherwise–and analyzes each portion of the filmography. By the final post of a retrospective, there will be a better understanding of the fi...
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LAFF Review: ‘Fruitvale Station’ is Equally Powerful and Problematic
Reviewing a film like Fruitvale Station is unbelievably challenging. Movies based on true stories are already hard enough to critique on a plot or character level, but when you're dealing with such a harrowing, difficult story as the one about what happened on...
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The David Lynch Retrospective: ‘Dune’
The Movie Mezzanine Filmmaker Retrospective series takes on an entire body of work–be it director’s, screenwriter’s, or otherwise–and analyzes each portion of the filmography. By the final post of a retrospective, there will be a better understanding of the fi...
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‘Frances Ha’
Like seemingly all things about the twentysomethings of this generation, Frances Ha is either going to deeply resonate with you, leave you completely cold, or flat-out infuriate you. Adding more to this polarization is that it's co-written and directed by Noah...
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The David Lynch Retrospective: ‘The Elephant Man’
The Movie Mezzanine Filmmaker Retrospective series takes on an entire body of work–be it director’s, screenwriter’s, or otherwise–and analyzes each portion of the filmography. By the final post of a retrospective, there will be a better understanding of the fi...
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The David Lynch Retrospective: ‘Eraserhead’
The Movie Mezzanine Filmmaker Retrospective series takes on an entire body of work–be it director’s, screenwriter’s, or otherwise–and analyzes each portion of the filmography. By the final post of a retrospective, there will be a better understanding of the fi...
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‘Sightseers’
B-
I still don't know what to make of Ben Wheatley, and I especially don't know what to make of his latest film Sightseers. I haven't seen his debut film Down Terrace, but while his growing cult-favorite Kill List has plenty of champions, I wasn't much wowe...
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The Big Wedding Is a Big Failure
Some scripts can be saved by a good cast that delivers the material with as much chutzpah as possible. And then there are some that are simply unsalvageably dreadful. The Big Wedding is one of those scripts. Primarily based on a French comedy called Mon frère ...
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Arthur Newman Plumbs the Depths of Blandness
C-
Different films aspire for different things. Some movies want to be sprawling epics. Some want to be emotional powerhouses. Some want to win Oscars. Some want to win the box office. But sometimes, all a movie wants to be is a nice, swell, inoffensive tim...
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