MOVIE: Civil War (2024)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Civil WarYear: 2024Rating: RLength: 109 minutes / 1.82 hours With Alex Garland's latest film, Civil War (2024), I still maintain my belief that his films use the medium of movies to ask, "What makes us human?" In his previous sci-fi works like Ex Machina (2014) and Annihilation (2018), the genre did most of the heavy lifting with that question. For Civil War, the current heated political climate is the backdrop that shines a harsh mirror on humanity during armed conflict. The framing, however, is truly what makes this film stand out—and it's not about politics at all. As a photographer, I understand what it takes to capture a moment without being part of the moment. You need to be present, but neutral. Civil War pushes this concept to its limits within the context of war photography. How does the press capture these atrocious moments while standing by to let them happen? Is documenting the war more important than stopping it? On top...
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MOVIE: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Everything Everywhere All at OnceYear: 2022Rating: RLength: 139 minutes / 2.32 hours Multiverse stories are all the rage right now. While most of them seem to be relegated to comic book adaptations (like Loki, Spider-man: No Way Home (2021), and Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022)), by far the best one to emerge from this pile of parallel universes is Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). It is the most bizarrely funny movie I've seen in some time, which just goes to show how films released by A24 are of a higher caliber than anything else. Most multiverse movies play it pretty safe when exploring branching paths of the known universe. Everything Everywhere All at Once throws literally everything at the audience, and the result is hilarious. Office equipment mechas, Human Ratatouilles, Rocks, Bagels. I honestly can't come close to describing the rapid-fire series of absurdist realities. Some moments were straight laugh-out-loud funny to me, and others were...a bit more adult...
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