MOVIE: Minari (2020)

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Minari Year: 2020 Rating: PG-13 Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours One has to wonder if last year's Best Picture, Parasite (2019), helped pave the way for Minari (2020). While both are quite different films, the acceptance of South Korean cinema has been a long time coming. However, one thing both films share is their sense of foreshadowing. The subtle phrasings and actions of the characters seem inconsequential at first but evolve into hard-hitting plot points as the movie progresses. These story beats hit hard even with a relatively simple plot and left me emotionally devastated with each twist and turn. Set in 1980s America, Minari speaks into the evolution (or, some would say, death) of the American Dream. The belief that anyone from anywhere can come to this land of opportunity and make a living doing what they want to do is the strongest in the immigrants who came here hoping to capitalize on the United States' freedom. But, unfortunately, it's not as easy...
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MOVIE: Poltergeist (1982)

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PoltergeistYear: 1982Rating: PGLength: 114 minutes / 1.90 hours Some movies have spoilers, and then some movies have so deeply-ingrained themselves in the popular culture zeitgeist that it’s nearly impossible to not have some knowledge of them before actually sitting down and watching the film itself. Poltergeist (1982) is just such a film for me. I’ve seen it referenced on many different lists and other places that claim it to be a great horror film. I’ve also seen it referenced and parodied in several places (like The Simpsons). The combination of its notoriety and its parody meant that I had pretty much already seen this film before actually watching it. Since I already knew the “big reveal” that caused the main characters’ house to become haunted, I had to watch this movie with a slightly different focus. Mainly: how and why has this film stood the test of time? Sure, it dates itself sometimes with its early-1980s style; however, the special effects for...
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BOOK: Roadwork (1981)

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Roadwork Year: 1981 Author: Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) Length: 577 minutes / 9.62 hours I wasn’t aware of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym until I picked up this book to read on a whim. While it’s clear all of King’s technical prowess is still present in Bachman’s work, the “king of horror” gained a chance to write outside his genre. Of course, King has done this before with a few different books (like Hearts in Atlantis, The Green Mile, and The Dark Tower series), but writing under a pseudonym seemed to unleash an amount of cynicism I’ve hardly seen in King’s writing before. Written in the early 1980s, Roadwork exhibits all the identifying marks of a cynic who has been over-saturated with consumerism. The need to have a job to support a family by buying a house that needs to be filled with the accouterments of modern living is a bit too much for some people. This is especially true for those who don’t...
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