Joonatan Itkonen
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House of the Dragon Season One Review
Alkuperäinen artikkeli
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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Review
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Disney Plus Review: I Am Groot
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Bullet Train Is Derailed By Its Ugly Orientalism
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ELVIS is a Cinematic Religious Experience
Brilliant, subversive, and stupendous. Elvis is a religious experience and one of the best films of the year. There’s a scene very early on in Elvis, the new mega-biopic from Baz Luhrmann, where I felt myself relax and sigh with relief. Actually, it’s a collection of scenes all in one. Luhrmann won’t let something as trivial as linearity restrain him. Not in the medium of film, which in his hands turns into a religious experience of auditory and sensory overload. Elvis (a stunning Austin Butler) readies himself for his first gig. The crowd is less than enthused. We’re hitting all the clichés of biopic cinema. He stands before the audience, eyes darting into the unimpressed abyss, and we flas
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For All Mankind Boldly Goes Off the Deep End in Season 3
I really love the first season of For All Mankind. Even as I acknowledge that the alternate history it presents is shallow at best. But even with all its faults, that first season has so much going for it. There’s the fantastic cast, compelling drama, and a time in the space race that defined an entire generation. Every bit about it works. So why is that after a colossally terrible second season, For All Mankind still can’t right the ship as it sails into total fantasy in its third, and most expansive season yet? * Set in the early to mid-90s, season 3 dumps the Moon for something grander: Mars, the red planet. As the Soviet Union and America race for supremacy, a third competitor appears to
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Prehistoric Planet Brings Dinosaurs to Life in a Majestic New Series
(Prehistoric Planet premieres on Apple TV+ on May 23rd) Produced by Jon Favreau and narrated by David Attenborough, Prehistoric Planet is probably as close as we’ll ever get to the dinosaurs in our lifetime. In that lies both its success and occasional stumble. Where it succeeds, it soars. As a vision of life on our planet 66 million years ago, it is momentous. Made real by impeccable artistry and scientific vision, it is astounding in its presentation. It will make children fall in love with these beasts all over again. On the other hand, it is also an exercise in anthropomorphism. The attribution of human characteristics to animals we don’t, and can’t, understand. While the science behind
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Prehistoric Planet is a Spellbinding Success
(Prehistoric Planet premieres on Apple TV+ on May 23rd) Produced by Jon Favreau and narrated by David Attenborough, Prehistoric Planet is probably as close as we’ll ever get to the dinosaurs in our lifetime. In that lies both its success and occasional stumble. Where it succeeds, it soars. As a vision of life on our planet 66 million years ago, it is momentous. Made real by impeccable artistry and scientific vision, it is astounding in its presentation. It will make children fall in love with these beasts all over again. On the other hand, it is also an exercise in anthropomorphism. The attribution of human characteristics to animals we don’t, and can’t, understand. While the science behind
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Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a Wild Triumph
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is like a rollercoaster. One that hums along exactly as you’d expect a rollercoaster to do. It swerves, dips, has a nice buildup, and an end both anticipated yet equally sudden. Its speed can be measured in RPMs. Raimi’s-Per-Minute. Sam Raimi, the director, is someone most film fans have probably heard of. At least, I hope so. He’s the demented genius behind horror-comedy classics like Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell. It was his vision that initially sparked the comic-to-film madness in the early aughts with Spider-Man. Now, he returns to Marvel after a thorny breakup in 2007. Raimi staples Danny Elfman and the great Bruce Campbell tag along too. As far
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Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Runs At A Thousand Raimi’s-Per-Minute
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is like a rollercoaster. One that hums along exactly as you’d expect a rollercoaster to do. It has swerves, some dips, a nice buildup, and a sudden end both anticipated yet equally sudden. Its speed can be measured in RPMs. Raimi’s-Per-Minute. Sam Raimi, the director, is someone most film fans have probably heard of. At least, I hope so. He’s the demented genius behind horror-comedy classics like Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell. It was his vision that initially sparked the comic-to-film madness in the early aughts with Spider-Man. Now, he returns to Marvel after a thorny breakup in 2007. Raimi staples Danny Elfman and the great Bruce Campbell tag along
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A Roundtable Interview With Matthew Goode
I got a chance to speak with Matthew Goode, the actor playing Robert Evans in The Offer, which premiered on Paramount Plus this Thursday, April 28th. In the series, Evans is a larger-than-life character. A self-proclaimed messiah of epic proportions. With a perpetual shit-eating grin, he dominates the screen every second the camera is on him. In-person, Goode couldn’t be further from his screen persona. Soft-spoken with an English lilt, he’s affable and thoroughly charming as he answers some rapid-fire questions about the show. The following is edited for length and clarity. * How much did you know about the making of The Godfather before this project? Does it still hold up after making this
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Everything Everywhere All at Once Is Magically Brilliant
(Everything Everywhere All at Once premieres this Friday, April 29th, 2022) I turned 35 last autumn. It was around then I finally received a diagnosis of my autism and ADD. After three decades, I finally knew why my head was so loud all the time. It literally held in everything, everywhere, all at once. Around the world, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, were working on their latest feature. Initially pitched as a comedic story of someone with ADD, the duo began to research the misunderstood illness more thoroughly. As they came away with a better understanding of it, Kwan also received a diagnosis of his untreated ADD symptoms. No longer able to writ
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Ozark Comes To A Perfect End
(Ozark Season 4, part 2 premieres on Netflix Friday, April 29. 2022.) Considering everything the Byrds have gone through, calling it “running the gauntlet” feels like an apt metaphor. But I prefer the Finnish term for it. Kujanjuoksu. Literally “running the alley.” It means the same thing, but paints a picture of tightening alleyways full of blind corners. Something where discomfort is as natural as breathing. But what comes at the end of the alley? What happens when that alley is everything you’ve known for so long that it feels like second nature? And what if that alley never ends? It’s here that the Byrds find themselves, five years later, as their rope begins to run out. * Things pick up
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The Northman Is An Epic Masterpiece
The Northman, directed by Robert Eggers and starring Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, and Willem Dafoe, could initially be mistaken for an easily digestible mainstream fare. This is, after all, a nearly hundred million dollar production releasing at the start of the summer blockbuster season. Look beyond the resplendent visuals and dire marketing campaign, and Eggers’ latest proves itself a smart, deeply evocative meditation on the cycle of violence in a world shaped by faith. In re-telling the oral history of Amleth, Eggers finds a surprisingly fitting home in a mythical pan-Scandinavian world. The result is a visionary folktale of its own that grows in the making. Brill
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Night Visions: What Josiah Saw
(This is part of our Night Visions Back to Basics 2022 festival coverage. Check out details on screenings for What Josiah Saw here.) Somewhere in the bible belt is a weather-beaten old farm. It barely stands, more spiteful than proud. Inside, the sole occupants, a scraggly father, and his mentally challenged son watch the days pass by. The son is devout. The father is defiant. Neither has much use for the world, just as the world has no use for them. Far to the west, another man spends his days drinking, fucking, and scheming. To call him a petty thief would be a disservice to both pettiness and thieves. In a rainy city, a woman buries her fingers in her hands. She’s waiting to hear if her a
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Night Visions: Upurga
(This is part of our Night Visions Back to Basics 2022 festival coverage. You can check details on Upurga’s screenings from here.) It’s hard to upend tropes. More often than not, the result ends up feeling smug. Like you’re condescending to the very material you’re trying to subvert. Even if you try to pull the rug out at the last minute. This is why Upurga worried me in the first twenty minutes. It leans heavily on its inspirations, even namedropping Deliverance as subtly as a sledgehammer. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. Worried it was going to be one of those films. By the time its ruthlessly efficient 85 minutes were up, Upurga proved me entirely wrong. This is a smart, eloquent, and
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Night Visions: Holy Shit!
(This is part of our Night Visions Back to Basics 2022 festival coverage. You can check out more details about Holy Shit! and its screenings here.) There’s a thin line between good taste, bad taste, and bad taste that goes right back to good taste. Holy Shit!, the feature debut from Lukas Rinker, swirls around all three of these, only gaining frantic momentum before the end. You could compare it to a flushed toilet in a way. I won’t, but you could. Thankfully, Rinker isn’t content with just bad taste. Though there’s plenty of it to go around. Holy Shit! is also remarkably aware of its genre conventions, and not afraid to use them to the full extent. Most of the fun with these closed-room-thr
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Ten Films You Should See At Night Visions Back to Basics 2022
Night Visions returns on April 20th to the 24th with a full, classic festival lineup after a long dry spell of shortened and compromised events. There are over thirty films playing over four days and one night. As always, it’s an impressive collection of absolute bangers of genre-cinema from around the world. While the special screening of Häxan didn’t make this list, don’t miss out on what promises to be a spectacular 100th anniversary screening with a live score by Veli-Matti Äijälä. I have reviews coming in all throughout the week before tickets go on sale this Friday, April 8th, so be sure to check back for more content soon. Also check out the full festival roster here! Everything Every
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Moon Knight Would Be Better As A Movie
(Moon Knight premieres on Disney+ on March 30th. Four episodes out of six were screened for review.) Moon Knight has two major takeaways left behind after the first four episodes. First, it’s almost solely propped up by the tremendous Oscar Isaac. But that’s hardly a surprise. While the rest of the cast are good, none measure up to this subtle, heartbreaking, and nuanced performance. It sidesteps all of the potential landmines, even though it dances to the same rhythm as the colossally awful Cruella from last year. That’s mainly thanks to Isaac, who never allows for his mentally ill protagonist suffering from dissociative identity disorder to turn into a joke. Second, Moon Knight should have
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Halo Season 1 First Look: New Timeline, Who Dis?
(Halo Season 1 premieres on Paramount Plus on March 24th. The first two episodes were viewed for this preview.) I’m what you’d call a fair-weather Halo fan. I like most of the games and, like many, spent a lot of my college years in their grasp. I’m unfamiliar with the books beyond a passing glance. But, without noticing, I’ve invested myself in hoping the series gets the big-screen adaptation it deserves. It’s not like the hype isn’t unwarranted. During the last fifteen years, Halo has lived in the hands of filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Guillermo Del Toro, and Neil Blomkamp. Each with a strong vision of what that cinematic universe could look like. Now, it finally arri