
Searching for Transcendence


The Wandering Earth 2 Surpasses First
The world was a very different place when The Wandering Earth came out in 2019, and The Wandering Earth 2 meets our changed world with a completely reimagined sequel,…
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Thoughtful Streaming on a Budget
Netflix: $19.99 (premium). HBO Max: $14.99 (no ads). Disney Bundle: $13.99. Amazon Prime: $14.99. Paramount Plus: $10 (premium).
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Missing Shows Screenlife is Here to Stay
Screenlife is here to stay, thanks to Timur Bekmambetov. A Kazakh-Russian director and producer, Bekmambetov is responsible for what’s likely the most outstanding formal innovation…
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“Glorious” and “Gloomy”: The Drug King and President Park Chung-hee
No film has quite definitively evaluated the Park presidency-dictatorship quite like Woo’s 2018 drug themed crime drama, The Drug King.
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Humanism and Childlike Fun in Shin Ultraman
I remember walking out of the theater from Iron Man (2008) as a child, pushing the tips of my fingers to their extremes in order to generate…
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Interview: Belmont World Film Family Festival’s Ellen Gitelman
For the first time in my tenure with the Boston Hassle, the Belmont World Film Family Festival is live and in-person (with several accessible online options). BWFFF will show 11…
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Broker is Kore-eda’s Anti-Manichean Masterpiece
Despite being completely snubbed at the 43rd Blue Dragon Film Awards, South Korea’s more popular film award ceremony, the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker stood an excellent…
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Infernal Affairs and the Dark Night of the Soul
One thing I find displeasing about the contemporary Western cinematic landscape is its visual flakiness. The best shots of our biggest blockbusters are basically lifeless…
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Oscar Goff’s Best Reviews of the Year
“One of the defining aspects of criticism is that the critic approaches the work with a set of standards, or even biases, to judge it…
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In the Mood for Love Approaches the Canon
I’ll never understand completionist critics. It’s better, they would have it, to see 10 unique films than only eight unique films with two re-watches littered…
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My Top Ten Films of 2022
Damn, it was a good year for the movies. 2022 was my best year with new releases since at least 2018, if not longer. The…
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