![]() The lives in question are those of Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Too), who get the first taste of a mutual crush as children-before Nora’s family moves from South Korea to Canada. Weaved through the film is the Korean concept of “in-yun,” which suggests that fate ties people together through various lifetimes. With Past Lives, Celine Song articulates a familiar feeling-the yearning for an alternative life we might’ve lived-in a way that’s both smart and fresh. Plus, Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis are equally good as a pair of disarmingly affable FBI agents. Sydney Sweeney gives a fantastically subtle performance as Winner. In this condensed peek at Winner, you get a sense of her character, motivations, and how the FBI lulled her into confessing. But in adapting the transcript of Winner’s FBI interrogation, writer-director Tina Satter–who initially brought the story to the stage–has made a film that manages to be gripping and tense while also feeling mundane and true. Aside from her remarkable name, though, Winner’s story didn’t seem obviously cinematic. Winner's sentence was the longest ever imposed in federal court for a leak of government information to the media. In 2018, when it was reported that Reality Winner, a 26 year-old Air Force linguist and intelligence contractor, had been sentenced to five years and three months of prison time for leaking a classified report about Russian interference in the 2016 election, her case was notable. No matter how big these men’s invention gets, they always seem quite small, destined to be munched up by bigger world-changers. Instead, it’s a movie that knocks wild ambition down a peg. Blackberry isn’t a film that valorizes business, nor is it one that sinks its teeth all that deep. But what’s so beautiful about Johnson’s film–in addition to all the dynamic performances and moments of hilarity–is that in spending the final act on the company’s fall, the director shows how ephemeral these sorts of products are. He bluffs, he yells, he whips the ragtag group into shape, and pretty soon their device catches fire. They’re not taken seriously, until a raging, recently fired businessman named Jim Balsillie (a movie-stealing Glenn Howerton) comes on board. A group of nerds, led by Mike Lazaridis (a pitch-perfect Jay Baruchel) and his bombastic best friend Doug (Johnson), has created a device–a phone… that does computing!–that the world isn’t ready for. Will it? Or will 2023 be dominated by the good-to-very-good?įor as long as I can remember, we’ve been inundated with stories of guys inventing things in garages that will “change the world.” The beginning of Matt Johnson’s Blackberry resembles one of those stories, albeit with a quirkier tone and more jagged texture. With three behemoths- Oppenheimer, Barbie, and a new Mission Impossible-coming this month, though, and many festival sensations slated for Oscar season, the tenor of 2023 could shift quickly. That may, of course, just come down to the tastes and preferences of the group I was with.īut with 2023 halfway through, the table’s response felt indicative of the cinematic year thus far: There have been a lot of singles and doubles, but only a handful-if that-of resounding home runs. Ultimately, there were plenty of films from this year that the table quite liked, but only a few that they wholeheartedly loved. The question was met with a moment of silence. At a recent dinner party, I asked some friends if there's a new movie that made them fist-pump and excitedly holler, “MOVIES!" Or, put another way: What was the last film so good it bowled them over? It was a table full of frequent moviegoers, many of them filmmakers themselves. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |