8 years ago
All posts by Mallory Andrews
“Seymour: An Introduction”
Mild-mannered octogenarian Seymour Bernstein is considered a New York legend among the few who know him. Decades earlier, the once-promising musician gave up a calling as a concert pianist due to crippling performance anxiety and became a renowned piano teache...
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“The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest”
The story of Mark DeFriest is a truth stranger than fiction. In 1980, DeFriest was sentenced to four years in prison for minor theft at the age of 20, but his fight-or-flight instincts kicked in and he fled from jail. Recaptured only a day later, DeFriest’s me...
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“My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn”
When news of Liv Corfixen’s making-of documentary on her husband Nicolas Winding Refn’s critically lambasted Only God Forgives landed, there was a smattering of discontent over whether or not Refn was “deserving” enough of a (second, following Phie Ambo’s 2006...
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“Deli Man”
The very short history of documentaries with “_____Man” as a title format has nearly inspired a fully-fledged subgenre of their own. Films like Grizzly Man, Winnebago Man, and Big River Man evoke certain expectations of humanist character studies and sympathet...
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“Queen and Country”
In a pop-culture climate where gritty reboots, scathing irony, and winking meta-commentary are the norm, there’s something to be said for old-fashioned earnestness in contemporary cinema. John Boorman’s quasi-sequel Queen and Country is a game throwback to old...
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(Be)coming-of-Age Film: Céline Sciamma’s “Girlhood”
It would be naïve to believe that renaming Céline Sciamma’s Bande de filles (or Girl Gang) to Girlhood for its North American release is a mere coincidence, and not a pointed rejoinder to Richard Linklater’s award-winning behemoth. Certainly, there is no denyi...
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“Predestination”
On an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the results of a temporal anomaly puts one of the main cast face-to-face with an attractive woman he believes could be one of his maternal ancestors. The thought hits him: what if he was destined to travel back in t...
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“The Truth About You”
New Year’s Eve. A time for Best Friends™ to gather ‘round and learn Big Important Truths™ about themselves and each other. Or, in the case of The Truth About You, a time for irredeemably horrible people to say horrible things about each other in the name of “f...
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“Pioneer”
It’s to Pioneer’s credit that it is able to take something as clinical-sounding as “decompression sickness” and successfully turn it into a tension-ratcheting plot point. In Erik Skjoldbjærg’s early ‘80s-set thriller, the frantic race to the oil reserves at th...
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“Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles”
When going into a biographical film about an already widely-acknowledged genius-level artist, it’s hard not to expect that it could, at any moment, dip into the realm of hagiography—especially one that appears to proudly wear its hero worship on its sleeve, pu...
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