tributary stu

Movie micro-reviews and other stuff. A tributary to the big screen.

Because watching movies is cheaper than therapy.
Reviews & visual quotes — (almost) daily on all the socials.

movie reviews

  • Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015): A Nostalgia Soufflé

    In spite of being born towards the end of the 80s, I recall several “Margareta Nistor movies”, her trademark dubbing scarring my youth alongside the zombies of Return of the Living Dead. It’s funny, particularly because her often inflection-less voice made the humor of the movie much harder to understand at the time. Then again,… Read more

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  • An Honest Liar (2014): The Skeptic Inside

    There truly is something mystical about An Honest Liar, that allows it to transcend its flawed structure and be relevant in spite of it. At its core, the ambition of the film is to establish and walk the line between what constitutes an illusion and what rises to the rank of deception. To achieve this,… Read more

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  • Messi (2014): Mediocre Documentary About a Legendary Player

    With Barcelona on the brink, achieving the seemingly impossible feat of losing four of their last five matches, after what had been an almost perfect season since their defeat against Sevilla in October 2015, I took time out to rehash some of that Lionel Messi magic. The documentary about the player seemed like a healthy place… Read more

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  • Der Mann, der über Autos sprang (2010): A Soulful Escape

    As the movie (English title: The Man Who Jumped Over Cars) was drawing to a close, the question of whether one could really jump over an oncoming car was nagging me. Some brief research highlighted an increase of the average car height throughout recent decades to about 1.5 meters, but one could certainly go for… Read more

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  • Fúsi (2015): On Solitude and Defiance

    It was fitting that on watching this film, I was almost alone in the cinema, because isolation and solitude are powerful themes throughout Fúsi (English title: Virgin Mountain). So when you’re out by yourself, in the middle of the day, to watch an obscure Icelandic movie showing at an archaic cinema that now uses a… Read more

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  • Er ist wieder da (2015): An Exercise in Challenging the Norm

    I was traveling in Berlin a year ago when I first saw someone reading the eponymous book on which this movie is based. It stuck somewhere, so as my travels brought me back to Berlin and posters were advertising Er ist wieder da (English title: Look Who’s Back), I had to give it a go. The… Read more

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  • De ce eu? (2015): Skimping on the Details

    The DVD of De ce eu? (English title: Why me?) comes with a detailed and enlightening booklet to aid those who first come across this movie. Consequently, there is no doubt that the film is very well informed on what surrounded the real-life case of Cristian Panait and Alexandru Lele. The former, a young prosecutor in Bucharest,… Read more

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  • Local Hero (1983): Nothing Local About It

    Local Hero has many moments where it is film at its best. Even more so, moments where it just is, weightless to the core without becoming trivial. A proper bout of escapism that lingers, as prescribed by both commercial and artistic prophets of the medium. The only toll it requires is a tad of patience… Read more

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  • Taxi (2015): A Journey Around Censorship

    Somewhere, in the corner of my mind, the information about Jafar Panahi’s predicament was lying around unguarded. His 2010 jail sentence and twenty year ban from filmmaking were a result of what was deemed as propaganda against the Iranian government. Obviously, it has not hindered him in producing three movies since, all smuggled outside the… Read more

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