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Ananda Dillon
225 articles written by Ananda Dillon
- Movie | February 4, 2014
The Pretty One
The quirky indie comedy, what was once a unique and unfiltered genre, has started to grasp onto the same devices, making for predictable whimsy. The Pretty One, the first full length feature from AFI grad Jenée LeMarque from her...
- Movie | January 9, 2014
Her
In the near future of Her, LA has a few new buildings in its skyline and is as smoggy as ever. The haze only adding to its dreaminess. The metro extends all the way to the beach (something all...
- Movie | November 20, 2013
Fill the Void
Turning 18 means different things in different cultures, but almost every culture agrees it’s an age of adulthood. In the religious culture of Orthodox Judaism, at 18 a young woman is preparing for the important ritual of marriage –...
- Movie | November 15, 2013
About Time
Richard Curtis, the sentimental writer/director behind charming British rom-coms Love Actually, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, is easily England’s male Nora Ephron. His films burst with dry British humor and bashful lovable socially awkward leads. In Time gives every indication it’s setting out to...
- Movie | October 21, 2013
Gravity
Certainly no sci-fi film, and packed with more adrenaline than the average action film, it’s impossible not to have a physical reaction to the film Gravity. From the opening scene where astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and medical engineer Dr....
- Movie | October 16, 2013
After Tiller
In 2009, a man walked into a church and shot late-term abortion doctor, George Tiller. His assassination brought the total number of doctors providing late-term abortions down to 4 nationwide. The event also highlighted the extreme opinions that have...
- Movie | October 11, 2013
12 Years a Slave
With the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement’s march on Washington having just passed, and with the historically deplorable Columbus Day holiday upcoming, we can’t be reminded enough of the history of humanity’s tyranny over one another. Sobering...
- Features | August 1, 2013
10 Best Films to Cool You Off
There’s a famous urban legend concerning a man who accidently trapped himself inside a freezer. Understanding his death to be inevitable, he vowed to document his own death, writing down the experience of freezing to death for the sake...
- Movie | July 19, 2013
Europa Report
After seeing enough films on the subject, can we all agree that space travel outside the orbit of the earth seems to generally be a bad idea? This general consensus is why a film like Europa Report is able to...
- Movie | July 16, 2013
This Is the End
Why on earth would this post-modern feminist put a crass, self-referential, bro-mantic apocalypse film in her top 5 of the year (thus far)? Because Seth Rogen and super side-kick Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express), hit it on the head...
- Movie | July 4, 2013
The History of Future Folk
It’s not often I encounter new film genres. There’s nothing new under the sun, right? But a comedic sci-fi folk music family film is definitely a first, and that’s precisely what The History of Future Folk is. Light in...
- Movie | June 21, 2013
Behind the Candelabra
As a child, when staying at a motel or sleepovers with friends with premium cable, watching HBO always felt sneaky. You never knew what un-edited adult gem you’d come across. Watching Behind the Candelabra I was suddenly transported back...
- Movie | February 18, 2013
Lore
When a movie takes place directly before, during, or after World War II in Germany, there is little doubt the overall feel of the film is going to be dour. Lore is indeed that, but it also offers a...
- Movie | December 10, 2012
Hyde Park on Hudson
Many of America's favorite Presidents had what we'd call 'personality'; those distinctions that established them in the hearts of those they served. Lincoln with his storytelling, Washington and his cherry tree antics, Clinton and his saxophone. The American public...
- Movie | October 22, 2012
Holy Motors
Holy Motors opens in a theater of unmoving bodies, an unseen film plays. A man wakes in a bed on a boat, uses the key he has in place of a finger and stumbles through the wall into the...