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Arrival

2016 film

Watched 12 November 2016

Beautiful, unconventional, relentlessly tense. Arrival nails the uneasy, humbling atomsphere of facing the unknown.

Favorite detail: how the exact shape of the alien “pods” is kept ambiguous through clever camera angles, only to be progressively revealed throughout the film as different views are shown. Quite fitting.

The Blade Runner sequel seems to be in very good hands.

About star ratings

My ratings are subjective. I’m not aiming for a perfect ranking of comparative artistic merit, just trying to represent how I feel about stuff. Here’s what they mean:

Personal favorite. I simply love it, warts and all.
Something special. Highly recommended.
Good, but unremarkable. I’ll probably forget about it.
A waste of time. Not recommended.
Practically insulting. Soulless garbage. (Rare!)