Director Noah Baumbach gives this film a fine balance between feeling like a stage play yet also feeling like a documentary—achieved by lingering on the monologues and framing the two main actors in ways that depict their emotional distance from one another. The couple, played powerfully by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, are shown either with walls between them or as close to the opposing ends of the screen as possible to convey just how separated they feel even when they’re together. It makes for an explosive argument between the two that may just as well be one of the scariest movie scenes in history.
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The screenplay is another factor in how the ultimate theme of romantic breakups works so effectively; there’s such keen attention paid to the character arcs, which often are illustrated purely by pictures and voiceovers in the form of montages. As it shifts attention back-and-forth between the husband and the wife, the audience is assigned the role of taking sides, just like in real life when friends are forced to take sides when a couple they know breaks up. While not a pleasant watch, Marriage Story proves why divorce is not always a failure, because, in the end, there’s still a wonderful collection of memories to think back to. No movie before this has ever given such a harsh depiction of divorce, but more depictions like this in the future will be guaranteed.

R (DLSV)
Drama
2 hr. 16 min.

Watch it to THINK. 
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel SAD and AFRAID.

Based on the book, “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt, The Irishman covers over fifty years of the life of Frank Sheeran. Rather than casting different actors to play the characters as they age, or resorting to old-age makeup prosthetics, director Martin Scorsese did the reverse: use innovative de-aging technology on Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. The main approach to pulling this off was by using three cameras built into one, ergo, two of these cameras were infrared, and they were placed on either side of the main camera, which helped remove the shadows and made the de-aging process easier for the VFX artists.
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Scorsese knew that any use of motion capture dots would only hinder the performances, so he instead omitted any use of them to have everyone act on set as is. The only time modifications were made on set for the actors’ faces was by adding tiny reflectors on the faces and costumes that were meant for the infrared cameras to pick up as reference points. Then as the de-aging process went on, the VFX crew spent two years watching reference footage of DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino’s younger years. The result is a lovely compilation of the successes of Scorsese and the three main actors over their entire careers, one that pays tribute to the old and opens up the exciting potential for this new technology.

R (DLV)
Crime/Drama
3 hr. 29 min.

Watch it for FUN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY.

Sound of Metal is the kind of low-budget movie that knows exactly how to promote self-acceptance, and it does so via the story of a man who lives a nomadic band lifestyle until he must adjust to his permanent hearing loss. Riz Ahmed plays this role to absolute perfection as he captures the frustration behind the man’s unfortunate predicament, while Paul Raci, who in real life is a child of deaf adults, plays his new mentor, and a cast of deaf actors plays the members of the Deaf community. There’s a great understanding of this community, that these sorts of people don’t despise their condition, but rather recognize the benefits that it offers.
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To further demonstrate the eye-level approach that director Darius Marder took with the Deaf community, he along with cinematographer Daniël Bouquet effectively frames the ASL communication as the sound design masterfully depicts what the world sounds like to a deaf person. It’s not like the loud concert scenes shown toward the start of the movie, the overall experience results in a careful meditation about the power of noise. It speaks directly to the minority group in focus and makes it accessible for both them and Hearing people to understand. It’s a celebration of Deaf culture while also a work of art that begs those with hearing to question, “If this happened to me, what would I do about it?”

R (DLSN​)
Drama
2 hr.

Watch it to THINK.
​Watch it to feel SAD.

The two leads, Gary (15 years old) and Alana (25 years old), share an absolutely irresistible chemistry with one another that generates a careful ebb-and-flow of tension throughout the film. Gary feels sexually drawn to this woman who’s a full decade older than himself and tries to sound older than his age while motivated by his lustful puppy love. Whereas Alana knows how to describe a water bed to make it sound sexual, making her the perfect counterpart to Gary. The witty screenplay does more than just create engaging dialogue—it comments on the gas shortage crisis, which feels uncomfortably similar to today’s issues of limited natural resources.
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With more social themes like that explored, as well as the subtle use of fashion, director Paul Thomas Anderson makes everything about Licorice Pizza just scream the 1970s. The layers of authenticity lead to the credibility of the unbelievable story, and with the pitch-perfect acting, it could almost pass as a dramatized documentary. Overall, this work is pure genius; Paul Thomas Anderson mixes together these ingredients that to a sane person sound repulsive and makes them work in a way that bursts your bubble about our economy’s health, which in fact hasn’t changed much over the past fifty years. Other directors have managed to argue why pineapple on a pizza works, but Anderson used this movie of his to prove how licorice on pizza could work.

R (DLS​)
Comedy/Drama
2 hr. 13 min.

Watch it to THINK.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY.

This ambitious study on the unexpected virtue of ignorance tells its story with what is made to look like one long continuous take without any edit cuts. The clever tricks utilized to pull off this illusion included time-lapses to transition to a different time of day and letting objects move across the frame to hide swipe transitions between cuts. These shots lasted anywhere between 9-16 minutes long, and 90% of the film was digitally altered in some way, such as by removing the camera crew from the mirrors the actors constantly looked into. These mirrors were essential to achieve Iñárritu’s vision because they helped crop the actors without needing to cut or change the camera position, doubling as narrative symbolism to represent the ego of whoever is looking into those mirrors.
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Besides being an endeavor for the production crew, this narrative style was also a challenge that stretched the skill of the cast. Michael Keaton and Edward Norton both act their hearts out when they’re together, while Emma Stone delivers a monologue that’s guaranteed to ignite goosebumps. Yet there’s so much more that makes this movie so great: the dialogue is brilliant, the musical drum score is awesome, and the cinematography is among the most gorgeous ever put to film. There’s just so much about Birdman that makes it everything a movie should be, while also being a needed push for the potential of art.

R (DLSV​)
Comedy/Drama
1 hr. 59 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to THINK.
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY.

Despite its heavy subject matter, Da 5 Bloods is a massive achievement in paying tribute to the fallen soldiers while still being greatly entertaining. This film was done on-location inside the hot and humid Vietnam jungle, meaning all the practical stunts also had to be preplanned and performed right there in the unforgiving green environment, one where any wrong step could mean the difference between life and death. While there was a use of a blue screen for shots of the helicopter during the Vietnam War, most of the other effects were real. Yet this isn’t like other huge bombastic movies with massive budgets, this was smaller and more intimate, even with its lengthy runtime.

​The score was composed by jazz legend Terence Blanchard with a 90-piece orchestra, and manages to honor all Vietnam veterans in both the heavy action scenes and the slow emotional scenes. Scoring the picture must have been much harder on Blanchard knowing he also had to contrast the score against Marvin Gaye’s album, What’s Going On, which was featured throughout the film. It’s just one of many ways this grand international epic finishes its job while meeting all these goals that normally would contradict one another. It proves why this career-best product by Spike Lee ought to be required viewing by everyone, for this right here is the future of how war will be portrayed in media.

R (DLNV)
Drama
2 hr. 34 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to feel HAPPY, SAD, and AFRAID.