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Cinematary

where film criticism goes to die
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Taron Egerton stars as Elton John in Dexter Fletcher’s biopic of the queer pop icon

Taron Egerton stars as Elton John in Dexter Fletcher’s biopic of the queer pop icon

Rocketman (2019) by Dexter Fletcher

July 15, 2019

Review by Logan Kenny

Rocketman has the same energy as your local bank putting up a rainbow flag outside its branch for Pride Month. It is all facade, all meaningless. I hope one day, audiences realise that they deserve more than this.

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Florence Pugh stars in director Ari Aster’s Midsommar

Florence Pugh stars in director Ari Aster’s Midsommar

Midsommar (2019) by Ari Aster

July 10, 2019

Review by Michael O’Malley

Instead of turning off the horror to make room for comedy, Midsommar has comedy and horror coexist in the same space.

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Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland star in director Jon Watts’s Spider Man: Far From Home

Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland star in director Jon Watts’s Spider Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) by Jon Watts

July 8, 2019

Review by Courtney Anderson

Far from Home turns out to be a fun, but slightly uneven and familiar journey.

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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019

July 3, 2019

Festival Coverage by Logan Kenny

For two weeks in June, the Edinburgh International Film Festival screened over 100 features from around the world. Although it is impossible to cover the festival in full, Logan here reports back on 8 titles he caught there.

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Cinematary Canon #12: Sweaty Movies

June 24, 2019

By Zach Dennis, Diana Rogers, Ash Baker, Andrew Swafford and Reid Ramsey.

Note: These films are not ranked by quality, but rather in chronological order.

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Wild Nights with Emily (2018) by Madeleine Olnek

June 19, 2019

Review by Zach Dennis

Wild Nights with Emily never outright makes the assertion that Dickinson’s supposed lesbian relationship was the stone-chiseled truth. While it presents evidence to the claim, the bigger exploration it poses to the audience is our outright acceptance to what we perceive as historical text.

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Our Time (2019) by Carlos Reygadas

June 17, 2019

Review by Etan Weisfogel

You don’t listen to a King Crimson record for the lyrics—it’s about how the music sounds. Our Time, for all its flaws, sings like few films in recent memory.

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Speed (1994) by Jan de Bont

June 10, 2019

Retro Review by Reid Ramsey

25 years following the release of Speed, the film remains one of the quintessential action movies of the 1990s.

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Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) by Michael Doughtery

June 5, 2019

Review by Logan Kenny

Even if you can put the eugenicist politics aside – which I believe you shouldn’t – and just try to view it as apolitical spectacle, Godzilla: King of the Monsters fails on every conceivable level.

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See You Yesterday (2019) by Stefon Bristol

June 3, 2019

Review by Courtney Anderson

One of my favorite things about this movie is that no matter how complicated the time-travel missions or the technology that made them possible became, the movie never lost focus of reality.

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Frank (2014) by Lenny Abrahamson

May 29, 2019

Retro Review by Ash Baker

This film has something to say about musicianship in an age where everyone who has a Macbook or an iPhone has instant songwriting software, and quite a bit more to say about what does or doesn’t make an artist.

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The Perfection (2019) by Richard Shepard

May 28, 2019

Review by Courtney Anderson

I don’t even know where to start with The Perfection. It’s been a day or two, and I’m still gobsmacked by what I witnessed. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know where I am. Please send help.

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Cinematary Canon #11: 21st Century Musicals

May 27, 2019

By Zach Dennis, Diana Rogers Ash Baker, Logan Kenny, Michael O’Malley, Nadine Smith and Reid Ramsey.

Note: These films are not ranked by quality, but rather in chronological order.

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Keanu Reeves reprises his role as John Wick in the action franchise’s third entry

Keanu Reeves reprises his role as John Wick in the action franchise’s third entry

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) by Chad Stahelski

May 20, 2019

Review by Logan Kenny

Parabellum is less assured and seamless as its direct predecessor and lacks the simplistic emotional throughline of the original entry, favouring a messier, shaggier approach which doesn’t always hit flawlessly. However, the faults aren’t what stick with me days after finishing it, and they likely aren’t what I’ll think of months from now. Mostly, I’ll be thinking of Keanu.

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This is an essay about a boy and his Pikachu.

This is an essay about a boy and his Pikachu.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) by Rob Letterman

May 15, 2019

Review by Andrew Swafford

Throughout the marketing campaign leading up to the release of Detective Pikachu, I found myself bracing for the trainwreck that I imagined might be made of my beloved franchise. Now having seen the movie, I’m neither wholly mad nor impressed, but am rather left with a tangled thread of thoughts and associations ultimately leading me to the realization that it doesn’t matter what I think about this movie.

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2019 Nitrate Picture Show

May 13, 2019

Festival Coverage by Lydia Creech and Miranda Barnewall

For three days in May, the 5th annual Nitrate Picture Show, the world’s first festival of film conservation, screened 9 shorts and 9 features at the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, all from nitrate film prints. Nitrate film was the first kind of stock used for motion pictures, beginning in 1889 and going until 1951, when safety stock on an acetate base was introduced. Lydia and Miranda were able to catch all of the screenings, in addition to attending lectures and tours of the Eastman’s preservation facilities.

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever star in director Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart

Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever star in director Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart

Booksmart (2019) by Olivia Wilde

May 8, 2019

Review by Paige Taylor

I’m not joking when I tell you I am positively vibrating with giddy emotion over this movie. The experience of watching it was a fucking thrill. Once the laughter started, the room slowly transformed into sheer amusement-induced delirium and that energy sustained itself for the rest of the runtime. When I left I felt like I was getting back on the school bus after spending a field trip secretly drinking with all my friends.

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Robert Pattinson and THIS BABY star in director Claire Denis’s High Life

Robert Pattinson and THIS BABY star in director Claire Denis’s High Life

High Life (2019) by Claire Denis

May 6, 2019

Review by Michael O’Malley

High Life fits pretty neatly within the tradition of “arthouse sci-fi” and even more neatly into the sub-category of “arthouse space voyage” that began, for all intents and purposes, with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 in 1968 and continues on through Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris in 1972 and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar in 2014.

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Avengers: Endgame (2019) by Joe and Anthony Russo

May 1, 2019

Review by Courtney Anderson

As Tony Stark says, “Part of the journey is the end.” Endgame feels like a very appropriate end to this version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Cinematary Canon #10: One and Done

April 29, 2019

By Zach Dennis, Lydia Creech, Ash Baker, and Reid Ramsey.

Note: These films are not ranked by quality, but rather in chronological order.

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