First up, click over to Venus Zine to read my review of Luca Guadagnino's frustrating I Am Love [Io sono l'amore]. And while we're delving into the "arthouse" summer releases, I might as well link back to my review of the brilliant Dogtooth [Kynodontas], which is finally getting a limited theatrical run after playing the festival circuit for so long.
I swear there is one last post regarding James Cameron coming up around the corner. This will be a combined second take on Avatar and a final wrap-up of the CINEMA OF CAPS LOCK project. That Cameron project has taken much, much longer than I ever intended it to, due mostly to my own procrastination and tendency toward distraction. Regardless, I intend to follow it up with another long-form, open-ended Retrospecticus, to be officially announced as soon as the last Cameron post goes live. I will attempt to structure and schedule this one more rigidly so it doesn't take me until 2011 to finish it.
Speaking of open-ended, it's never too late to vote on the first entry of the Dude, Counter-Dude series, in which I spar over Million Dollar Baby with brother-in-arms A.A. Dowd. As of this writing the score is neck-and-neck: four for myself and three for Alex. I think I speak for both of us when I say we encourage you to vote not based on whether or not you liked the movie but on who made the more successful argument.
Finally, go see Toy Story 3. I've had some harsh lessons about hyperbole in film criticism (last year I wrote that the opening of Star Trek would be the best ten minutes of any film in 2009, only to discover the landmark prologue of Up a mere three weeks later), but I honestly don't know that I've ever been floored by a movie quite like this. Part of my reaction is a fifteen-year-deep connection to the characters, but I imagine it takes a special kind of curmudgeon to go unmoved by the third act of the Pixar trilogy's third act. Good stuff. I may have to revisit it at some point under a Severe Spoiler Warning to tackle that ending. Also, if we're lucky, at some point I'm going to have finish this lengthy piece on WALL•E that's been sitting in the drafts since 2009.
Stay tuned!
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