Cinema and Civics

  Oppenheimer isn’t simply a movie about the creation of the atomic bomb, it’s a full character study of the man behind it. Cillian Murphy completely embodies Oppenheimer, capturing the true grief and emotions he felt over his actions. Nolan takes you deep into this mindset with some horrifically mental scenes that might be the best display of anxiety I’ve ever seen on screen. Oppenheimer is fully realized, with Nolan’s bombastic direction completely enveloping the viewer. It’s almost hard to believe this movie is three hours because it breezed by for me, I felt so immersed from start to finish. Masterpiece material. Christopher Nolan almost always manipulates time in his projects, and that’s no different here as we see two halves of a story jumped between over the runtime. Half the story is of course about Trinity and the creation of the atomic bomb, but the other half is a deep investigation into Oppenheimer himself that feels like a political thriller. The cons...

  Evil and ignorance are two sides of the same coin. What a powerful, powerful film. Despite being 50 years into his career, Martin Scorsese is still gifting us incredible projects that are packed full of strong themes and messages. Very few directors are as prolific or impactful as Scorsese and I had to remind myself not to take that for granted while watching Killers of the Flower Moon. Films that covers historical events like this are important, but it feels even more impactful here as it's covering what's effectively a genocide that went completely under the radar. Native Americans have been continually mistreated and abused in the short history of the country I call home. Grappling with the sins of one's country can be difficult but it's so important to be aware of them regardless. There's certainly no other director who could have told this story with the emotional impact needed to tell it. The treatment of the Osage by the white vultures surroun...

  Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis work in tandem, not against each other. They act as vastly different sides of the same coin: Luhrmann’s style lends itself to Elvis’s glitzy, public-facing career and all the troubles that came with it; while Coppola focuses exclusively on the opposite subject, his personal relationship with Priscilla. Both leads nail the characters, and I think I prefer Jacob Elordi’s Elvis to Austin Butler’s. Coppola did not manage to get rights to Elvis’s music and the movie is 100% better for it. No classic hits, no Colonial, no flashy performances, this perspective is locked in on how Priscilla perceived Elvis. There’s so much intention in the way she’s portrayed next to him! From the very first shot we understand how young she was when Priscilla first encountered him. It’s pretty uncomfortable, but that’s the point. The structure of their relationship was never solid to begin with, and we see that unfold in unexpected wa...

  Isolated single-location tension-riddled dramas are enjoyable to watch from time to time, like Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight or the more recent Accused . The Royal Hotel takes this concept and adds on the social tensions of a rowdy bar scene in the middle of Australia. A crowd of tougher looking men from the local mines peruse this bar as it’s literally the only thing to do for miles around, and at the center of all that are two Canadian girls who are just trying to make some money behind the counter. You’re put into their shoes as they deal with harassment, ogling eyes and creepy individuals all while trying to hold it together. Julia Garner leads and has a charming performance that also captures a little meekness and strength at points in the story. The tension grows as certain elements of their situation worsen, with genuine fear creeping up due to realism of the situation. This great concept is unfortunately kneecapped by a lot of frustratingly dumb decision...

  Taylor Sheridan is a pretty hot name in the industry right now when it comes to all that land he’s bought up and all the shows he’s shooting on it. Sheridan has staked a claim in the television world and it seems he’s going to stay there for awhile. Wind River predates Yellowstone by a year or so, marking Sheridan’s first project as director and writer. By this point he had the Sicario and Hell or High Water script under his belt, and I can see a lot of inspiration from those movies carried over into this. Sheridan’s strength as a writer comes from raw, impactful moments and capturing the true spirit of the outdoors which fits the nature of this movie quite well. Wind River feels more personal than previous Sheridan scripts, capturing the negatives of modern life on a Native American reservation. While the main focus is obviously on the murder that occurred and a quest for justice, but we see brief, impactful glimpses of how rough life is for these people. The fath...

  One of the best feelings is experiencing a highly praised media project that's critically acclaimed, expecting it to be overrated, and then discovering that it's truly deserving of every ounce of praise it gets. Naturally I had pretty high expectations going into 12 Angry Men and damn was I happy they were met. It’s quite a challenge to shoot a whole movie in one location and keep things visually interesting the whole time, even Tarantino has some trouble with this (and he's done it multiple times). I was impressed with how varied the shots were in the jury room, and how the jurors themselves were blocked in frame. There’s some basic but impactful dolly shots where you track a juror as they ponder a new piece of info while you hear the rest of them deliberate on the side. Plenty of moments in 12 Angry Men feel personal, and it’s a testament to the skill of the cast for pulling off these close ups with nothing but expressions. I was pretty curious how the concep...