Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: Ex Machina (2014)

The next episode of our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives Tuesday night. Since Alex Garland's Men is upon us, this week's selection falls on the director's breakthrough feature – the Oscar-winning Ex Machina. You still have time to participate! Here's Cláudio's entry:

Even though one tries to avoid the online discourse around Men – at least until everybody has had a chance to watch it – some grumblings are rather hard to block off. If that wasn't enough to affect the expectations going into the new movie, this look back at Ex Machina certainly does. The sci-fi chamber drama is a formidable reminder that Alex Garland is a better director than a writer, colligating blunt ideas and blunter dialogue with spellbinding form. Within the realm of glances refracted through glass labyrinths, insinuating architecture and eerie eroticism, Ex Machina triumphs. It's when its characters open their mouth to blabber on that the appearance of cinematic greatness gets spoiled. 

Thankfully, Hit Me with Your Best Shot is about visuals, so we're in a safe place with Ex Machina. Whatever misgivings I might have, the film looks impeccable…

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Sundance: The relaxed dramedy of 'Am I OK?'

by Matt St Clair

Films like Am I Ok?, are something of a relief. The new joint directorial effort from Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allyne dispels the myth that we must have our entire life path figured out by the time 30 hits. Your chosen career, who you want to marry, etcetra. 30 may be a milestone, but you've still got plenty of time to find yourself. 

As 32-year old Lucy (Dakota Johnson) discovers, some people even figure out who they want to love later than expected...

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THR's 20 New Stars to Watch. Plus Ezra Miller.

by Nathaniel R

Remember when the release of Vanity Fair's "Hollywood Issue" used to be so exciting for its semi-frequent attempts to predict who would be the next big things? You could spot future superstars as well as divine which actors, great future or not, had hustling agents that managed to snag them covers with little actual work to back that up. The Hollywood Reporter is trying their hand at something similar with their new issue, which has four cover stars, two of whom (Awkwafina, Ezra Miller) aren't listed within the "NextGen" list presumably because they've already "arrived"? We don't know. The other two cover stars (Letitia Wright, Noah Centineo) are represented on the list after the jump...

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