James has written 127 reviews for films during 2019.
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Marriage Story 2019
Still hate the score but I've given 5 star ratings to movies with more flaws than this one, why the hell not. It just gets better and better the more it lingers in my mind
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Little Women 2019
Look all I know is if Timothee Chalamet asked me to marry him I would not fucking hesitate
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How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World 2019
This is the best one. A truly moving story about a world unable to adapt to change despite the best efforts of those who try to champion peace. Entire sequences are carried by the score, much like the first film. The character dynamics are incredibly strong, the animation is flat-out insane, the villain is a significant improvement over the last movie, and this is the first one of these movies to make me cry. An absolutely perfect ending to what is easily the best animated trilogy of all time.
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How to Train Your Dragon 2 2014
Didn't really get into this one as much, I thought the middle was significantly slow and didn't progress as masterfully as the first. Third act felt rushed in comparison. Wasn't a fan of many choices the characters made. The humor from the side characters was passable in the original but obnoxious here. And the score was a massive step down.
But hey, the main characters were still great and the emotional beats hit extremely hard, maybe even harder than the…
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How to Train Your Dragon 2010
Wtf why this movie so damn good? It's perfectly paced, incredibly powerful, striking from an animation perspective (save for a poorly rendered character here and there). Why did I never like this as a kid? It's the best DreamWorks movie of 2010, the year that also gave us Megamind and Shrek 4. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THAT OUTPUT OF QUALITY IN THE SAME YEAR. SHARK TALE HAS NO EXCUSE ANYMORE
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 2019
Starts out pretty fun but gets infinitely worse the longer it goes on. There are no characters in this movie; just action figures that are whisked from planet to planet in an excessively manic story that feels like it was written by an 8-year-old. Palpatine sucks ASS in this movie. Everyone other than Rey and Kylo pretty much sucks. It rings hollow, far more than any Star Wars movie that came before it.
And yes, The Last Jedi was better.…
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire 2019
I guess we're adding the number 28 to the list of things I never expected to emotionally destroy me and send me into a fit of sobbing
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The Farewell 2019
Gonna have to sort this into the "I don't get the hype" category of films sadly. It's a really great concept for a story, but it feels thoroughly underdeveloped. I wanted to learn more about who Billi is as a person, get more scenes exploring the cultural differences between America and China, and really see the main conflict and the ethics surrounding it get explored and fleshed out to a greater degree. But the movie just kinda felt repetitive after a while, never quite reaching the dramatic or comedic heights the story really deserved. Sorry, Nai Nai.
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