Akron (King & O’Donnell, 2015)
Benny (Matthew Frias), is a college student living the kind of charmed, fairy-tale existence that one imagines only places like Akron, Ohio afford to Hispanic gay kids.
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Captain Fantastic — A Homeschooler’s Perspective
As someone who grew up homeschooled, I have become accustomed to negative portrayals of homeschooling throughout media. Homeschoolers are awkward, they don’t know how to socialize, or as one comedian put it, “They’re like if an alien took over a regular kid’s body.”
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20th Century Women (Mills, 2016)
Mills loves the small moments of life too much to let them add up to any grand narrative. He would rather just watch the memories float by, like a slideshow at a birthday party or graduation.
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3 Screenshots: La La Land
Much has been inked so far about the film's charm and its "follow your dreams" theme. I can agree with that assessment, but I think La La Land is a more sober, ambiguous film (even before the end) than everyone is giving it credit for.
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2016 Top 10
My favorite films of 2016 depicted a lot of suffering. The characters in them faced that suffering with courage, determination, compassion, and introspection.
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Lion (Davis, 2016)
Lion is a movie that grapples with physical geography but not human geography. We get no real sense of what being Indian might mean to Saroo or whether his home has any pull independent of his childhood memories.
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Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong, 2015)
From the order of the title cards, the film appears to be providing a commentary that states Cheonsoo’s actions in the second half are much more laudable than his actions in the first, even though some later scenes demonstrate how inconsiderate he still can be, and his inflated opinion of himself never vanishes.
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Edwards, 2016)
Star Wars is a brand now, not a cultural touchstone.
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“Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Movie…”
Allegations that Maria Schneider was sexually assaulted--perhaps even raped--while filming Last Tango in Paris aren't new. But now Bernardo Bertolucci has admitted he did not get the actress' consent to film an infamous scene in the movie.
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The Fight Within (Gordon, 2016)
The Fight Within, a Christian-themed movie about a reluctant Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter, begins with Logan Chandler (John Major Davis) honing his skills working out at the punching bag. With each jab and thrust he flashes back to his father angrily admonishing him for some error in form or perceived error in character.