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The Artist (2011)
A breath of fresh vintage air
Filmmaker(s): Michel Hazanavicius

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

Dustcovers I am spending a lot of recent time with my list of essential films, reviewing and enhancing it. Several readers have suggested this film for that list. It has several characteristics that appeal. It is a movie about movies. It is made with movie-making explicit: the...


Published February 9, 2024
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The Gruffalo’s Child (2011)

A follow up to the 2009 animated feature and adapted from the childrens' book by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler. The Gruffalo's child explores the deep dark wood in search of the big bad mouse and meets the Snake, Owl and Fox in the process. She eventually finds the mouse, who manages to outwit her like the Gruffalo before!

Flat Black Tongues Oh help. Oh no! This is not the Gruffalo. If you know the book of which this story is the sequel, then you have experienced something special. It has an untrusted narrator nested in another untrusted narrator. The inner con is by a mouse...


Published February 5, 2024
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Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)
Love Honour Revenge.
Filmmaker(s): Takashi Miike

A tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord.

Bamboozled What a lesson in filmmaking! More or less the same script, but radically different films. And insofar as viewers want a moral, these work on two different aspects of society. The original was in the tradition of Ozu: flat, stationary camera and balanced greys. It had...


Published February 5, 2024
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Arthur (2011)
Meet the world's only loveable billionaire.
Filmmaker(s): Jason Winer

A drunken playboy stands to lose a wealthy inheritance when he falls for a woman that his family doesn't like.

A Matter of Worlds Remakes embed a history of abstraction, so even though both the concerned films may be trivial and uninteresting, the story of their difference can be quite engaging. The original was simply constructed based on the drunk redemption story spliced onto the flexible rubber...


Published May 16, 2023
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The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
This year, discover how far adventure will take you.
Filmmaker(s): Steven Spielberg

Intrepid young reporter, Tintin, and his loyal dog, Snowy, are thrust into a world of high adventure when they discover a ship carrying an explosive secret. As Tintin is drawn into a centuries-old mystery, Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine suspects him of stealing a priceless treasure. Tintin and Snowy, with the help of salty, cantankerous Captain Haddock and bumbling detectives, Thompson and Thomson, travel half the world, one step ahead of their enemies, as Tintin endeavors to find the Unicorn, a sunken ship that may hold a vast fortune, but also an ancient curse.

WETA Gold There are only three ways to turn on your mind. The third is too dangerous to even sketch. The most common is to allow it to do what it wants, tracing known pathways and presenting known patterns. All imagination comes home to rest. But then there...


Published March 8, 2023
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Margaret (2011)
Filmmaker(s): Kenneth Lonergan

A young woman witnesses a bus accident, and is caught up in the aftermath, where the question of whether or not it was intentional affects many people's lives.

Situations Okay, I’ve been through both edits of this now, after recommendations from several readers. I get what he is trying to do. I am writing as someone who prefers the Cannes edit of ‘Brown Bunny’ and who eagerly sat through 3 1/2 hours of ‘The...


Published March 2, 2023
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Limitless (2011)
Everything is possible when you open your mind.
Filmmaker(s): Neil Burger

A paranoia-fueled action thriller about an unsuccessful writer whose life is transformed by a top-secret "smart drug" that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life in this darkly comic and provocative film.

Constraints There are two things here to recommend. The first is that the screenplay is based on a fresh idea that springs from the kind of gangster genre typified by Snatch. I’ll characterise this as an anti-genre film because it uses that genre as a shortcut to...


Published December 24, 2022
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Life in a Day (2011)
The story of one day on Earth.

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.

Snail Eats Label Life in a day: The Scott brothers sponsor a film with YouTube. I suppose the idea from YouTube’s side is that ordinary people make films that are real, and that allow us to deeply share humanity...


Published December 24, 2022
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The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
They stole his future. Now he's taking it back.
Filmmaker(s): George Nolfi

A man glimpses the future Fate has planned for him – and chooses to fight for his own destiny. Battling the powerful Adjustment Bureau across, under and through the streets of New York, he risks his destined greatness to be with the only woman he's ever loved.

Two Worlds We live in two worlds with usually hidden doors between. One world is unexpectedly complex, powerful and cosmic in an apparently demented way. The second world we have to put up with. It is a world of rote mechanics and faux imagination. That first...


Published November 25, 2022
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Haywire (2011)
They left her no choice
Filmmaker(s): Steven Soderbergh

A black ops soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and left for dead.

Needles I saw this years ago and could not find anything useful to say about it. I saw it again because I am trying to understand what Soderbergh is doing with his life. He worries me because I have invested part of my life to films...


Published May 13, 2022
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