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1/10
I haven't logged in in years but did just to rate this
3 October 2022
It was comically awful.

  • The editing was terrible. In an 80-minute movie, we were treated to long stretches of scenes like the protagonist taking out her trash, making the movie feel like the run time was far longer. It was like an. Editing 101 submission.


  • I paused to check the year this film was made because (and not in a good retro way), it looked like it was made in the early 90s at some points.


  • The sound was poorly done, making it hard to hear dialogue at points.


  • Jay Pharoah's character was a joke. Going back to bad directing/editing: one of the longer stretches of his character on screen has his back facing the camera. He's absent for a large part of the movie and his character just comes off as filler. Terrible way to use your star actor.


  • The whole story was a mess. The ending was a mess and rushed. Certain character motivations were unclear or not addressed. So when the ending came, it fell completely flat. A certain character reappears and I laughed because he was so disinterested in everything until that point.


It was like a lifetime movie (though that's an insult to many LT movies). Not an entertaining one and not well done even for their standards. A boring, dated (but new), poorly directed and edited Lifetime movie.

The actors did their best but you could tell they were without proper direction. The lead woman's abilities were greater than the film, for sure. But she was working with nothing.
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Nomadland (2020)
9/10
Where is home?
28 March 2021
Warning: Spoilers
On a personal level this movie hit me at a point in my life where I got a 60 day notice from my landlord in a place where it is very hard to find good housing. Now, I am privileged and will likely find some accommodation, but the circumstances have made me feel the spectre of housing insecurity in a way I have been lucky to avoid thus far.

For me, this movie is about two things. And many reviews here seem to think they contradict, but I simply think they run in parallel:

1) Fern, who like many people in the US have suffered extreme economic and personal loss due to the rapidly changing economy. People who once relied on "stable" jobs and communities that sprung up around large companies. They worked hard, they did the right thing, and yet, one day their livelihood is gone and with that comes despair. Suddenly their once stable life, falls apart and it doesn't take much: the death of a spouse, drugs, inability to find new steady employment and they find themselves without a home.

This touched my profoundly as it is an ever growing part of the American experience. You do what you're supposed to do and one day you find it didn't matter. All that sweat you put into your work and now you are left with nothing and no new marketable skills and just jump from one low wage job until the next.

2) The nomad lifestyle. I see comments about how her experience isn't like "true" nomads or how it glamorized the lifestyle. I personally did not see that. I saw a mix of people; those who chose to adopt that lifestyle, and those who found themselves with no other choice.

And yet, what they all have found is a community. They support each other, take care of each other. They commune with nature, they fit in the margins of a capitalistic society.

Fern lost everything, she did not chose the nomad lifestyle, but in many ways it chose her. There are moments of beauty and moments of struggle. There's so much I could say, but this movie touched me deeply on many levels as it captured both beauty and pain so quietly.
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