Sean Lemme

I started blogging as a way to lazily pass my high school senior project and somehow I've kept doing it for more than half my life

Criterion Month Day 5: Aparajito

Aparajito (1956)

One thing that’s tricky about reviewing an older movie is balancing how it feels to see the film for the first time today versus appreciating its historical context. So when I have to write about a film like Aparajito, I have a hard time not making it sound like a typical coming-of-age story. But if I go too hard the other way, focusing entirely on the history of the movie doesn’t do it justice either. Cinematographer Subrata Mitra invented bounce lighting during the production of Aparajito, do you have to be the type of person who knows what cinematographers do and what bounce lighting is to enjoy it? Not at all, this is a much more universal experience than that.

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Criterion Month Day 3: Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter (1945)

One night in a refreshment room at a busy railway station, a gossipy older woman called Dolly (Everley Gregg) sees her acquaintance Laura (Celia Johnson) and a man sharing a tea. She invites herself to their table. The man introduces himself as Alec (Trevor Howard), politely buys Dolly a tea, and soon leaves to catch his train. Laura seems a bit ill, and tries to sleep on the way home, disappointing the talkative Dolly. She offers to walk Laura home, but is turned down. She’ll never know it, but Dolly was there for the most devastating moment in Laura’s life.

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Forked Up

Toy Story 4

How popular are toys with kids these days, anyway? Now that we have smartphones and tablets, children are more interested in imitating their favorite Twitch streamers and YouTubers and building towers in Minecraft and/or Fortnite than playing with their Batman action figures, right? And if that’s true, doesn’t it beg an even more disturbing question: is the limitless potential of digital entertainment actually stunting the development of creativity in our youth? After all, if you can play out the fantasies of a team of adult developers, why work on your own imagination? Well, if these hack writing prompts actually are interesting to you, I’ve got some bad news! The filmmakers of Toy Story 4 couldn’t care less about such modern issues. They just wanted to put a button on this saga that started back in 1995.

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Some Kind of Movie – Ep. 10: America’s Ass

Good storytelling does not rely on twists. It needs to be more than “what’s going to happen next?” If you’ve done it well, your story should stand up to a second viewing. Case in point: I’m desperate to see Avengers: Endgame again, but in no hurry to revisit Sunday’s genuinely thrilling, climactic episode of Game of Thrones any time soon. But don’t ignore the value of being surprised. That is a fun part of the experience too, and one of the reasons a trip to the cinema is still something special. All of this is to say, we’ve got a four-man spoiler-filled discussion of Endgame for you right here, ready to go. You should probably see the movie first. Everybody else did.

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I Like This One

Avengers: Endgame

It’s Kill Bill: Volume 2. That’s the least spoilery way I can sum up Avengers: Endgame. Infinity War was about building up the mystique of its villain and showcasing all the best fights. Its second part and conclusion decides not to really try to one-up that movie’s greatest strengths, and instead focuses on pathos and catharsis. But that’s not to say it’s not self-contained, Endgame is a complete story told in three distinct parts: the aftermath of The Snap, a celebration of the whole MCU, and a riveting, fan service-driven conclusion. Unless you’re someone who is only interested in the action, I’m sure you’ll be happy to have seen it. And if you have seen it, join me after the jump for some more details.

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MCU Retrospecticus: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Original Review: n/a

One thing I didn’t mention in my Ant-Man review is how it parallels the first Iron Man so well. You could describe Tony Stark or Hank Pym’s arc as the story of a guy recovering from a trauma and standing up to the evil dude who took over his company. The big difference being that Hank Pym is not the main character of Ant-Man, Scott Lang is, so they came up with a contrived reason for Hank and Hope to have to rely on Scott to help them. The smartest thing Ant-Man and the Wasp does is lean back the other way, letting the film become the story of a super hero father and daughter, and this other guy who wants to help but mostly wants to take care of his own daughter.

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MCU Retrospecticus: Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Original Review: Some Kind of Movie – Ep. 9: Why is Gamora? (unrated)

Well, the reviews for Endgame are out and it sounds good. I wouldn’t know, I’m scared to actually read any of them, because it’s hard to write critically about a film without revealing plot details and those are something I’m trying to avoid. But it does have me thinking about this year we’ve had and whether the climactic moment of Infinity War should have been more than a cliffhanger setting up this year’s part two.

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