Honestly considering joining the Shaker community after watching. Amanda Seyfried gives a legendary performance as the female Jesus Christ incarnate. This is a musical in the same way that Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek is a pop song; stripped bare, skirting all rules, and creating something transcendent in the process. -Nico
a day b4 i saw this movie my affair w a norwegian girl who was kind of suicidal when i had met her was reaching its end. we saw a lot of ourselves in each other. i've been like emotionally intimate with relative strangers before but never in such a clean efficient way. are all norwegians a little autistic? it felt very perverse and nice to be so open and understanding with one another. our thing was self-confrontational, two lost but hurtful and miserable artists who had stopped making art reminding each other what they had used to love about art. the last date we had they angrily compared me to james spaders character from sex lies and videotape and i had never been fucked so hard. we were both very cruel to each other but it was mutually enjoyable. it was the realest thing i had felt this year. Sentimental Value fr.. and she kind of looked like renate reinsve.. like the same smile. also my dad died 4 months before i saw this movie. If my ex is reading this i still love you. I want a home -dj interior semiotics
Did we really need another spin on the classic Cinderella tale? Yes, we did. Elvira, The Ugly Stepsister herself, is sent into a downward spiral of decay, disordered eating, and fucked up nose jobs. The women around her all suffer similar fates as they, desperate to change their current living situations, vie for the attention of noble men. Unfortunately for them, the men in this story are like the tapeworms they eat to stay skinny– soul sucking, wrinkly, and downright ugly. -Kayrin Brower @kayrinskodak
The era of the Vice documentary has passed us, leaving us with struggling and dying media companies looking for the most outrageous stories as they compete for our attention. Magic Farm is the story of New York documentarians not realizing they went to the wrong South American country to do a profile on a musician, and instead fabricate a fake one, rather than create a story based on the actual newsworthy happenings that take place in the background of their quest. Sardonically funny and a great cast, which includes Ulman herself. -Luc M.
Sally Hawkins scarily encapsulates the role of a desperate and grieving foster mother as she searches to fill a void left in her aching heart. The atrocities inflicted upon the three foster children are some of the most grotesque scenes in the horror genre's recent memory. The highest praise I can grant Bring Her Back is that it made me feel fucking horrendous and I never want to watch it again. -Kayrin Brower
Quotes were rattling through my mind for days after watching this, even after only a single watch. This film is a perfect visualization of coming up short, despite your large ambitions. Real life is often scarier, yet more banal, than any sort of fabricated horror. (Full write-up coming to Moral Crema Online shortly) -Luc M. @dionysiac_
A techno acid horror trip in the desert. Mostly worth watching for the room shaking soundtrack and the interface between a roadtripping rave 'found family' and a father and son. In my opinion, it's a spiritual successor to Climax in its use of music and dance to bring you into a spiral down to hell. -Luc M.
Bugonia is probably my favorite Lanthimos film. My life wouldn't have had to gone all too differently, personal traumas not too much greater, to see myself in the shoes of the protagonist. To me it's a film about alienation and the misguided desperation of isolated resistance to capital in a time and place where all social bonds are dissolving, where imagining a world beyond the horizon of the current order of things has become next to impossible. Bugonia is a story about the futility of fighting alone, about the "sad militant" who, instead of channeling desire into a life in common with others on the periphery, instead of organizing to build a small pocket of another world to be defended, shuts oneself off from that desire. Nothing shows this more than the protagonists' self-castration, the ultimate repression of desire for connection in favor of an embrace of atomization and retreat into paranoid fantasy. The end of this world is for nothing if it doesn't contain the seeds of a new one. -Jack Watson
Though I can understand Lurker primarily functioning as a cautionary tale surrounding celebrity worship and parasocial relationships, and the way the celebrities rely on these relationships, I can't help but sympathize with the central character because I've been there. There's little difference between love and obsession, at least at first. -Luc M.
I watched the movie wasted and didn't understand any of it except the dude's legs got blown off and they spoke military speak the whole time. I was like wow this is so sad, and loud, and scary. - Elle Driver
There were a handful of heartbreaking scenes that made the movie for me. It was an enjoyable watch and felt very quintessential Baumbach in its "write what you know" quality. -Alex Blaisdell @alexmblaisdell
Mythic and larger than life in a dystopian Pynchonian present day setting, starring some of the best and most loved characters I have seen in years. Crowns the best new postmodern American girl. The fight is generational, and doomed to repeat itself, but our children will forge ahead and lead the future. "We failed, but maybe you won't". -Lila Nevada @shirewraith
What’s more frightening than being a little gay boy? Being a little gay boy with the fucking plague. A true horror masterpiece that reeks of chlorine and throws you back into the jail cell that is your fucked up adolescent mind. -Nico
A transformative and deliciously dark narrative that is both so sincere and cutthroat it's reminiscent of a desperate dog breaking loose from its leash. A downsize. A job search. The crescendo of murder in the name of love and duty. Fighting the war against modernity and becoming obsolete. Director Park is no stranger to these brutal and destructive themes, demonstrating a universal truth that we would all rather keep our loved ones close for a little while longer, even in the face of absolute loss and capitalist doom. -Ivy Torres
The therapy industrial complex needs to be put out of its misery. No one knows what to do when a young person is sick, when a mother isn't a completely selfless, warm, inhuman embodiment of generosity and kindness, what to do when people's neuroses are too annoying to deal with. Lately it seems like audiences are looking for black and white stories about people who are good vs people who are bad, not realizing that everyone can encompass both. This is a necessary watch for anyone who doesn't have patience for mothers in particular, but also women as whole. -Luc M.
Pillion is being marketed and received as somewhat of a comedy, and I think this is wrong. There are moments that are watch-through-your-fingers cringe, but I don't think it's necessarily funny. Shaving your head, wearing the collar, wearing the singlet, stretching your hole, it's embarrassing but completely sincere. "Isn't [love] the whole point?" "Of what?" "Of everything?" -Luc M.
Saw this on a whim at New York Film Festival and it blew me away. A psychedelic animated drama made specifically for lesbians with mommy issues. The most horny you’ll ever be for an anthropomorphic cow. -Nico
Since the success of Challengers, mainstream audiences have been craving another snappy and sexy film from Guadagnino. After the Hunt couldn't be more opposite. Some may find this ambiguous slice-of-life tale to be unsatisfying, but it is in fact where the genius lies. The ambivalence from the director’s perspective accompanied by masterclass performances from both industry giants and recent starlets makes for a perfect storm that depicts the cesspool of academia. -Kayrin Brower
I was really grateful for the time I got to spend with these characters and in their world. Their flaws and virtues are really charming; everyone says just enough for the viewer to make out what’s really going on. -Alex Blaisdell
Moral Crema's movie of the year is without a doubt Avatar: Fire and Ash. James Cameron's third Avatar demands to be seen in a theater, whether it's Dolby 3D, IMAX, or the skull shaking 4DX. As the screen opens up to the Hallelujah Mountains, you're immediately transported to Pandora to fly with the ikran and swim with the tulkun. Oona Chaplin gives the best performance of the year as terror inducing goth girlfriend Varang. The series has never been more batshit than when Varang lights a kamikaze Na'vi on fire as he suicide bombs into a Medusoid jellyfish airship. We're also treated to her blowing ayahuasca up our nose and experiencing her harrowing backstory through a psychedelic veil. Everything you want from the Avatar movies is here with even higher stakes, grander visuals, and the most adorable otter-like creatures called Zukzuk. If that isn't enough of a reason to be in love with Fire and Ash there's a fucking End of Evangelion giant Rei head type scene in here. -Nico