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PTA, Pynchon, Pianosa – Initial Responses to Inherent Vice (2014) by Paul Thomas Anderson | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/initial-responses-to-inherent-vice-2014-by-paul-thomas-anderson
PTA, Pynchon, Pianosa – Initial Responses to Inherent Vice (2014) by Paul Thomas Anderson. January 19, 2015. By comparison as a similar struggle, is the better film, and actually looks like a masterpiece from this vantage point. By severing its ties with the book, ignoring the need to render its contents with stringent fidelity, the film takes on its own characteristics as a surreal fever dream where what’s truly happening remains mysterious. Dips into surreality better than. Is written all over. Had jus...
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Ballroom Blitz – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) by Sydney Pollack | After Images
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Ballroom Blitz – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? 1969) by Sydney Pollack. June 28, 2016. After my most recent viewing, showing it to a friend who’d never seen it, the screen went black as it always does, the echoing sounds of the audience and the emcee in that hellish ballroom suddenly cut short, leaving us in a state of aghast bewilderment and astonished anger. My friend finally blurted: “Well, fuck that movie! I last under these circumstances? Who would I choose to be my partner? Requiem for a Dream.
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Confused States – Mars Attacks! (1996) and Tim Burton’s Lack of Focus | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/confused-states-mars-attacks-1996-and-tim-burtons-lack-of-focus
Confused States – Mars Attacks! 1996) and Tim Burton’s Lack of Focus. October 23, 2014. It’s hard to find logic in things sometimes. That’s why I can’t analyze things too much, because it often doesn’t make much sense. I wouldn’t know a good script if it bit me in the face. Towards the end of. As a revelation, that Mr. Burton didn’t quite know what he was doing. He could line up the look and get some. Saves the day, even if it’s to serve his own needs. (. Was the first hint at Burton’s true lack of focus...
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Personal Dissolution – Night Moves (1975) by Arthur Penn | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/personal-dissolution-night-moves-1975-by-arthur-penn
Personal Dissolution – Night Moves (1975) by Arthur Penn. April 1, 2015. As its narrative, drowning in subterfuge, hunches dashed, deceits spread as far as we can see, with one of the more glaring tools of symbolism in modern film staring back at us with a cruel self-satisfaction: a boat with the name POINT OF VIEW circling the water aimlessly. The boldness of. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. April 1, 2015. Lonely Crowd – Nashville (1975) by Robert Altman. Loose Ends and Needle Points – Jesus̵...
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Waiting Rooms – The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2015/06/02/waiting-rooms-the-shining-1980-by-stanley-kubrick
Waiting Rooms – The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick. June 2, 2015. Note: Like any of my absolute favorite films, any entry for. Is sure to be only scratching the surface, so consider anything that follows as a work-in-progress entry. Is what happens. Everything stops. Outside the hotel walls is the mechanical groaning of Dick Halloran’s approaching Snowcat and the moment goes silent. It could be a moment from. Remains, for me anyways, a rather straightforward piece, and an uncommonly beautiful one at t...
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‘Round and ‘Round – Magnolia (1999) by Paul Thomas Anderson | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/round-and-round-magnolia-1999-by-paul-thomas-anderson
8216;Round and ‘Round – Magnolia (1999) by Paul Thomas Anderson. December 19, 2014. Became a summation of his incomparable vision up to that point, clearly revealing a pathway having been paved by the films preceding it, so was. To the Anderson canon. And the comparison to Altman is especially apt here since so much of the film is an act of homage to his legacy, especially in its structural similarities to. 8211; the L.A. sprawl, the commonplace grasped with a. McCabe and Mrs. Miller. December 19, 2014.
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Lonely Crowd – Nashville (1975) by Robert Altman | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/lonely-crowd-nashville-1975-by-robert-altman/comment-page-1
Lonely Crowd – Nashville (1975) by Robert Altman. June 5, 2014. Disclaimer: It is nearly impossible for me to simply write an entry for. Has been mine for years. The best I can do is add to this intermittently, little observances here or there like a notebook, to add to a larger picture. It may not seem coherently organized but I suppose its a way of using the film’s own approach as a means to understanding it. 1 The Lonely Crowd. Be happening at any moment. Altman wants. June 5, 2014. Square One –...
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Out of Reach – Heaven’s Gate (1980) by Michael Cimino | After Images
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Out of Reach – Heaven’s Gate (1980) by Michael Cimino. July 22, 2014. I finally sat down before it, the legendary debacle, the abused masterpiece, the ragged monster that allegedly changed how movies were funded in this country due to the massive hubris of its director and the wayward results that left audiences and critics cold, if not outright hostile. Takes all the blame, leaving Spielberg’s. One From the Heart. New York, New York. Deserved all the praise heaped on it, and finally seeing. During my pr...
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Double Fantasy – Brazil (1985) by Terry Gilliam | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/double-fantasy-brazil-1985-by-terry-gilliam
Double Fantasy – Brazil (1985) by Terry Gilliam. June 28, 2016. Centered on the world of a child and his escape from a closed-minded modernity through the outlet of imagination and all the while remained an accessible, family-oriented picture with a twist. To be a vision of a near-future instead of its intended representation of the very century in which it was made, plainly Gilliam’s litany of concerns and exasperations with society at large. Is a truly nightmarish vision at its core, of feckless humani...
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Hall of Mirrors – Stardust Memories (1980) by Woody Allen | After Images
https://michaelhawthornesmith.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/hall-of-mirrors-stardust-memories-1980-by-woody-allen/comment-page-1
Hall of Mirrors – Stardust Memories (1980) by Woody Allen. May 20, 2014. Very early on in the dizzying. And all the way up to. When it comes to the reductive trope of Woody either making ‘serious’ or ‘funny’ films, I tend to back away and instead look at each film as a kind of weather report on his soul. One can see Bergman all over. Has always felt like a breakdown in its own right, as startling a change of pace as. From Charlie Chaplin. After the freeze-out of. Release) there appeared to be a change in...
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