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Diane Carson
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Only the River Flows (2023) |
Wei Shujun’s murder mystery “Only the River Flows” upends the familiar investigation plot, for his Chief of the Criminal Police Ma Zhe will follow one frustrating lead after another. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Aug 07, 2024
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Last Summer (2023) |
Anne knows full well that indulging this affair endangers her personal and professional world, and yet she surrenders in what feels inevitable, especially given Breillat’s seductive pace, mesmerizing performances, and nonjudgmental approach. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Aug 07, 2024
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SCALA!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-Up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits (2023) |
“SCALA!!!” is, therefore, a most welcome tribute to a landmark London cinema, one, quite astonishing in terms of its history. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Aug 07, 2024
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Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter (2021) |
“Love, Charlie” presents a solid, wide-ranging description of the renowned, remarkable chef Charlie Trotter. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Banel & Adama (2023) |
Sy has succeeded in combining poetry with social critique in a haunting, beautiful film. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jul 12, 2024
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Coma (2022) |
“Coma” is a rather chaotic assortment of ideas and images, reality and dreams. And yet, it captures our disjointed world and our free flowing stream of consciousness, including pervasive anxieties and elusive freedom from cultural conditioning. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jul 12, 2024
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Daddio (2023) |
Shot in a quick sixteen days, the film’s success depends primarily on its cast of two superb actors: Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn who make this a riveting hour and forty minutes. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Here (2023) |
“Here” calms viewers as it invites them to relish important, overlooked beauty. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Beijing Watermelon (1990) |
Presented as a realistic slice of life, at times in a documentary style, surprisingly Ôbayashi breaks the fourth wall in dramatic fashion at the conclusion with a strong, concluding statement about shared humanity. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 25, 2024
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The Bikeriders (2023) |
The cast includes Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, and Jodie Comer in exceptional performances that, nevertheless, can not save the dreary world of dimly lit bars, macho posing, and recourse to violence. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 21, 2024
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My Heart Is That Eternal Love (1989) |
Danny Chung’s music complements the moody scenes and effectively underlines the more frenetic, violent ones. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 21, 2024
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Federer: Twelve Final Days (2024) |
Seamlessly, Roger’s earliest tennis days, notable matches, and his last one are woven through this tribute. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 21, 2024
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Y tu mamá también (2001) |
... An embarrassing indulgence for an hour forty-six minutes in sophomoric sexual comments and behavior in a road-trip story lacking imagination. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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Tuesday (2023) |
Throughout this stunning escapist fantasy, the imaginative blend of surrealistic and realistic content delivers gut-wrenching emotion with surprising impact infused with sensitivity. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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Sweet Dreams (2023) |
"Sweet Dreams" conveys a truthful critique more devastating than any documentary on a world divided into the cruel haves and disadvantaged have-nots, the white and the Indigenous. It is a successful, powerful film. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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Young Woman and the Sea (2024) |
The main weakness is the intrusive, overbearing music that insists on emotions already clearly conveyed through the performances and script. Still, the film works, with the triumph of talent and true grit. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 05, 2024
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Art College 1994 (2023) |
All their concerns are familiar and irresolvable, especially for college students. Still, on balance, hanging out for two hours with these familiar young adults is a pleasant experience. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jun 05, 2024
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Return to Reason (2023) |
Avant-garde films deliver experiences, not linear narratives. As with dreams, they may tease viewers for logical interpretation or for connections to events. I’d resist those urges... - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 29, 2024
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Brokeback Mountain (2005) |
Above all, the performances of Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger lift “Brokeback Mountain” above the ordinary study of male-male friendship and love—repressed, resisted, indulged, debated, and analyzed. It pays dividends in its haunting specificity. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 29, 2024
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Inherent Vice (2014) |
“Inherent Vice” works best as a “go with the flow” experience. To enjoy, it calls for surrender to its irreverent mockery and its illogical juxtapositions - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 21, 2024
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A History of Violence (2005) |
Cronenberg brilliantly elicits a continuum of emotions, elicits our involvement as well as our reflection. This is an astonishing feat made all the more effective by a complex and subtle performance by Vigo Mortensen... - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 21, 2024
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In Our Day (2023) |
The prolific South Korean writer/director Hong Sang-soo never fails to surprise and educate with his unique technical and thematic choices, a pattern that holds true in his recent film, "In Our Day." - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 21, 2024
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L'Amour Fou (1969) |
... Long takes and slow developments reward the necessarily patient viewer with a rich study of art, cinema, and life. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 06, 2024
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Contempt (1963) |
Iconoclastic, Godard reinterprets formulaic cinema and creates his own idiosyncratic technical and thematic approach. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 06, 2024
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That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) |
When a distributor asked what the film was really about, Źuławski responded, “The Important Thing Is to Love.” That theme dominates a romantic triangle, but in a thoroughly unconventional way, characteristic of the entire film. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 06, 2024
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Wildcat (2023) |
Working from letters and journals, Hawke brings this devout but irreverent Catholic to vivid life. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 06, 2024
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Disco Boy (2023) |
The cumulative effect is an overpowering visual experience conveying hope for humane personal and global relationships. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 01, 2024
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Kaili Blues (2015) |
With its meandering narrative, it takes some patience to engage with Chinese writer/director Bi Gan’s “Kaili Blues,” but the effort is immensely rewarded with unusual immersion in contemporary life in Guizhou province, southwest China. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted May 01, 2024
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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus (2023) |
This elegant, haunting tribute is a unique documentary unlike and superior to musical homages I’ve seen. It transported me to a world of beauty and grace. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Apr 23, 2024
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Civil War (2024) |
Nevertheless, watching the Lincoln Memorial blasted, other D.C. sites demolished, protestors beaten, and callous militiamen murdering impactfully delivers nerve wracking moments. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Apr 23, 2024
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La Chimera (2023) |
This is a film with an important message about valuing the past and ethical behavior in the present. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Apr 22, 2024
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Apolonia, Apolonia (2022) |
Apolonia, Apolonia becomes frayed—connections occasionally awkward, informative details often lacking. I empathize with both these women’s Herculean trials... but, frankly, I felt unengaged, a spectator rather than a fellow traveler. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Apr 09, 2024
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Girls State (2024) |
There’s so much happening that occasionally the film feels scatter-gun and hectic... Nevertheless, this intensive and exhaustive week leaves me heartened by the serious, involved young women who are, after all, our future. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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They Shot the Piano Player (2023) |
[A] compelling, toe-tapping historical record contrasting political repression with spirited music. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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Pictures of Ghosts (2023) |
hroughout, Filho expresses a poignant nostalgia, suffused with love, sadness, regret, and, above all, gratitude for the community cinema had and still does unite. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 27, 2024
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Nostalghia (1983) |
Characteristic of Tarkovsky, "Nostalghia" is comprised of prolonged takes, an absence of exposition, dreamlike moments, existential dread, autobiographical details, and unusual, but striking compositions. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 27, 2024
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Drive-Away Dolls (2024) |
According to this month’s American Cinematographer, Coen says he fully intended to make a low-budget “trashy movie.” He succeeds stylistically and thematically in this disjointed road adventure. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Feb 26, 2024
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The Arc of Oblivion (2023) |
The Arc of Oblivion offers a truly thought-provoking consideration of a heady subject as director Ian Cheney presents his far-ranging examination of memory and the pursuit of permanence in an entertaining, idiosyncratic way. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Feb 21, 2024
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Perfect Days (2023) |
A director strikes gold when he creates an engaging character of integrity and strength, one who doesn’t parade his ego to the world, one who wears his history well, with restraint, without sentimentality, and yet with profound, suppressed pain. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 13, 2024
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Pandora's Box (1929) |
Its immense impact comes from the overwhelming magnetism of Louise Brooks as Lulu, the irresistible woman at the center of events. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 13, 2024
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Police Story (1985) |
“Police Story” is classic Jackie Chan with a looney-tunes plot all in the service of Chan’s inimitable, superhuman gymnastic and athletic ability. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 12, 2024
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The Taste of Things (2023) |
... A visual treat with incisive commentary on late nineteenth-century French aristocracy. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 07, 2024
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Hundreds of Beavers (2022) |
The fast pace and quick wit of those diabolical animals, all brutalizing Jean Kayak, lift the action into the realm of fantastical insanity, and I mean that as a warning and a compliment. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 07, 2024
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Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023) |
Thiên embodies the contentment we all seek while feeling constrained within, as the title states, a yellow cocoon, that is, a highly restrictive environment from which to emerge, metamorphosized like a butterfly. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Feb 02, 2024
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The Zone of Interest (2023) |
Loosely based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel, Glazer’s narrative adds to the banality of evil. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jan 23, 2024
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The Smell of Money (2022) |
Employing a straightforward documentary approach, the case mounted leads to one conclusion... I for one will never be able to look at Smithfield bacon, Nathan’s hot dogs, or any of their brands without this reality uppermost in my mind. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jan 17, 2024
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Memory (2023) |
The superb performances, contrasting in tone, by Jessica Chastain as Sylvia and Peter Sarsgaard as Saul deserve a much better script, one that would illuminate without histrionics and explain without contrived reveals. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jan 17, 2024
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Youth (Spring) (2023) |
... A marathon, one worth the time and effort. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jan 17, 2024
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All of Us Strangers (2023) |
Inhabiting these space, the actors strike just the right level of nostalgia, reserve, pain, or release. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jan 17, 2024
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Victims of Sin (1950) |
Sevilla’s extraordinary energy and flair enliven the cultural collisions of middle class versus working class, exploitation amidst modernization. - KDHX (St. Louis)
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| Posted Jan 11, 2024
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