Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is the story of Pu Yi, the last imperial ruler of China, crowned at the age of three, sheltered inside the Forbidden City through a constant wave of revolts and violent takeovers before becoming in turns an exile, despot, and gardener who treaded lightly as Mao’s cultural revolution took over the nation […]
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Eschewing the typical thrills for a more wordy, philosophical take on the genre, this true-life gangster film backs its brawn with brains. Marco Bellochio’s historical crime epic The Traitor opens at a Cosa Nostra party in Sicily, senior criminals wandering lavish grounds, greeting each other with smiles that barely conceal rivalries, poison and murder behind their eyes. […]
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For fans and critics alike, Brokeback Mountain will forever be known as the “gay cowboy” movie. Almost invariably, the emphasis will be placed on the first half of that label–and understandably so: The love, briefly indulged and long inhibited, between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist is the narrative and emotional core of the film and of […]
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The Devil Wears Prada is two films in one: a caustic, energetic satire of the fashion world and a cautionary melodrama. The first works; the second doesn’t. Fortunately, the running time of the former doubles that of the latter, making The Devil Wears Prada more of a hit than a miss. In fact, even through some of the […]
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New version of Jack London’s classic man-meets-dog adventure digitizes its canine hero—and loses something vital in the process Harrison Ford and a CGI-generated dog star in the latest screen adaptation of Jack London’s classic 1903 adventure novel. There have been movie adaptations of Jack London’s classic 1903 novel The Call of the Wild dating as far back […]
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Bong Joon-ho’s Best Picture winner might already be perfect, but a new monochrome version only serves to make it all the more striking. Bong Joon-ho’s subversive masterpiece Parasite might be one of the most vibrant, dangerous films we were lucky enough to see in the 2010s – a film delicious for all its colours, both literally and […]
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At last the full arc is visible, and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy comes into final focus. I admire it more as a whole than in its parts. The second film was inconclusive, and lost its way in the midst of spectacle. But “Return of the King” dispatches its characters to their destinies with […]
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In recent years, Korean films have been gaining momentum, but not many comedies have come out of the circle. The impression of Korean comedy, except for the early films like ‘Sex Is Zero’ ‘Going by the Book’, is probably only ‘Extreme Job’ ‘EXIT’ in 2019. Finally, this year, another Korean comedy that is interesting just […]
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