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****** 12 (Tie) ******
Drug War
Johnnie To
The director’s first action movie on the Chinese mainland is a well-oiled machine of mutually assured destruction. Cops and criminals are envisioned as robotic cogs in a surveillance apparatus that saps their energy, leaving them as emotionless husks of professionalism. The only way to assert individuality? Drop down dead.
R. Emmet Sweeney
****** 12 (Tie) ******
Museum Hours
Jem Cohen
In a year whose movies seemed to be all about speed, violence and staring into the void (but what else is new?), Cohen’s first proper narrative-
feature instead opted to double down on placid observation, delicately sketched melancholy and naturally lighted loveliness. It was this summer’s great air-conditioning movie, an entrancingly patient examination of how relations between human beings are even possible in the first place.
Dan Sullivan