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January 31, 2009

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Nomadland, 2020 - ★★★
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From a cinematic perspective, I found mixing professionals and amateurs awkward; even though Zhao minimizes the distance between McDormand and the actual van lifers with her achingly lovely realist style, it’s still visible. McDormand can’t be as raw as they are. Eventually she gets to leave the van. That dissonance kept resonating throughout the film. […]
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Midway through it became clear that Sean Baker was making a yuppie-in-hell movie in the grand tradition of Desperately Seeking Susan and After Hours. Mikey Madison’s Anora is no yuppie, but she does take that big leap into a different life with dangerous results. What makes this special isn’t that; it’s the human realism Sean Baker […]
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Culkin’s performance is fine. However, it’s Eisenberg who hauls the movie out of the land of stereotypes with his passionate monologue towards the mid-point of the movie. The texture he adds there brings Culkin’s performance into relief, making it more than just a Roman Roy riff.There’s also hidden weight in the script. The cousins visit […]