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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing

@swenryan.bsky.social
2.5K followers 650 following 2.3K posts

Freelance film critic, lafilmcritics.bsky.social Secretary/Events Chair, list obsessive. Host of Catalyst and Witness, co-host of 24 hours don't make an ideology. USC JD, CAMS MA.

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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 35m
I DESERVE A LOVER WHOSE EVERY RISE SETS FIERY DOOMS RAGING ACROSS THE SKIES: Evocative in its conception of art and collections, no matter how eccentric, as repositories for hidden and suppressed memories; Haghighi’s continual unpredictability is a great tribute.
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Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 8h
I wrote about EIGHT TAELS OF GOLD, and Mabel Cheung's extraordinary abilities to tell romantic stories. She's an unbelievable director and I hope she will be widely rediscovered someday. www.patreon.com/willowcately...
The organic quality seen in her pauses, her integration of characters within the space, and the accumulation of little moments building to a whole is also emblematic of the strengths in her romantic film Eight Taels of Gold. Some films feel as if they hold the entire world in the frame, because they are so lovingly detailed that our emotions feel as though they emanate from the characters. We’re right there with them. Cheung’s characters in these two films encounter the great swell of meaning that can be achieved through romance, and her characters grasp its greatest possibilities of fulfillment and heartbreak. This sometimes even occurs in the same scene. The great David Bordwell called the temperament of Hong Kong cinema, “an unabashed appeal to emotion.”, and I think about this movie when I read that phrase. Romantic films are usually prone to contrivances of separation and reintegration—those operas of want—and while Cheung’s films may seem like they contain those devices of conflict, she makes them seem quotidian. It is a very hard trick to pull off, but she does so with the elegance of a David Lean, whose Brief Encounter (1945), remains the model for all romantic films.a still image from EIGHT TAELS OF GOLD of a young couple (a man and a woman) approaching an older man who is sitting by a tree.
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Filipe Furtado @filipefurtado.bsky.social · 8h
On Ozu and An Autumn Afternoon.
anotacoescinefilo.substack.com
Ends and Beginnings: The Bliss of Life and the Bitterness of Death
On An Autumn Afternoon and Perspectives on the Cinema of Yasujiro Ozu
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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 8h
THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK: Cozy in its aim to call back to an old-fashioned form of lowkey urban crime film, though Segan underlines his characters' struggle against forced obsolescence too frequently; only sometimes convincing but decent.
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Tim Grierson @timgrierson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In honor of it being the opener for this year's New York Film Festival, here's my Cannes review of PAPER TIGER, in which James Gray gets terrific performances from Adam Driver and Miles Teller, who both play against type as brothers unintentionally orchestrating their own destruction.
screendaily.com
‘Paper Tiger’ review: Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson drive James Gray’s textured 1980s crime thriller
Gray's Cannes Competition premiere unfolds in 1980s Queens
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Tim Grierson @timgrierson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
One of the more slept-on films of this fall festival season has been Andrew Haigh's A LONG WINTER, which I think is among his best. It plays today at the New York Film Festival.
screendaily.com
‘A Long Winter’ review: A sheltered young man faces a seismic shift in Andrew Haigh’s masterful 1950s Rocky Mountain drama
Haigh follows All Of Us Strangers and 45 Years with this atmospheric study of a splintering family
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Tim Grierson @timgrierson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
In honor of its New York Film Festival screening, here's my review of MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART II - EXILE, Julia Loktev's exceptional follow-up to the best movie of last year.
screendaily.com
‘My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile’ review: Julia Loktev’s portrait of Russian journalists in exile deepens in its second chapter
The follow-up to 2024's 'Last Air In Moscow' proves every bit as compelling, if more intimate
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Tim Grierson @timgrierson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My review of Lee Chang-dong's POSSIBLE LOVE, which in a just world would be a Best Picture nominee.
screendaily.com
‘Possible Love’ review: Lee Chang-dong explores class, desire and exploitation in powerful Venice competition return
The 'Burning' director reunites with star Sul Kyung-gu for an enigmatic drama about two married couples divided by wealth
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Tim Grierson @timgrierson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Not since MEGALOPOLIS have I encountered a film like DIGGER, which similarly has massive ambitions to tell a sprawling story about The Way We Live Now. In both cases, I don't think the final product works at all, although I do find each movie genuinely fascinating in its failure.
screendaily.com
‘Digger’ review: Tom Cruise fails to convince as a bullish Texas oilman in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s ambitious misfire
John Goodman, Riz Ahmed and Sandra Hüller also star in Iñárritu's audacious, shallow satire
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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 10h
An @astrostic.bsky.social curated multi-format 3D screening!
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Blake Williams @astrostic.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I'll be in LA to show a bunch of my 3D work there for the first time on October 18! Plus another fun thing on the 19th, TBA soon.
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Acropolis Cinema @acropoliscinema.bsky.social · 10h
Announcing! 📣 On Oct 19, we welcome Blake Williams (@astrostic.bsky.social) for a curated program of eye-popping 3D shorts! <(🔵‿🔴)> Co-presented by @la3dspace.bsky.social, these works employ multi-dimensional technologies ranging from chromadepth to diffraction 3D. 🎟️: link.dice.fm/G60533763b9e
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 23h
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 23h
"oi, afore I cave yer skull in, oi just want you ta know I'm not appropriatin, The Rock's family gave me a pass"
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 23h
"Hello, my good friends on Voyager. This woman has become merged with a virus and I simply need someone to separate the two"
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 23h
No....... No...... NOOOOOOOO!!!
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is gonna be one of those moments you don't think about for a month and then suddenly go "goddamn, I *really* blew that"
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I hope the next movie has Timothy Spall with a minigun
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
where it all began...
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
buddy, they've been straining this whole damn movie!
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
🎵Dear sir or madam, won't you ride my cart? 🎵It took my years to earn, won't you come take part? 🎵I'm having a duel with a man named Lau 🎵But I need job 🎵So I wanna be a pedicab driver 🎵Pe-di-cab driverrrrrrrrr!
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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JO: CHAPTER PHAEDRA: For much of its runtime “merely” an exceptionally well-observed depiction of a teen’s tentative awakening, then launches into the stratosphere; the boldness of Lentzou’s narrative and visual recoding is so special.
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Dan Schindel @danschindel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Did a roundup of great shorts you can catch at this year's NYFF at @filmlinc.bsky.social
danschindel.substack.com
A Classy Curation of Shorts at NYFF 64
New works by Kevin Jerome Everson, Peggy Ahwesh, Adam Piron, and more.
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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
BITTER CHRISTMAS: Surprisingly self-lacerating in Almodóvar’s treatment of his multiple levels of cannibalizing fiction, capturing a low thrum of excitement over the characters’ creativity to make the ensuing confrontations more guilt-inducing; a canny work.
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Rock has met his match in John Fetterman
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm gonna pull a Charlie Watts (stay in hotel room quietly)
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Kudos to them for picking one of the funniest names Jason Statham could be saying constantly
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A single comedian cameo is one thing, but this just reeks of desperation
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
alright, he got his ass pretty good here
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this is just something he'd wear in one of the more recent Ritchies
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Mr. En-Ra-Ha himself... the Pei Mei of Vroom Vroom boys everywhere...
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
So he's a rapping zombie cyborg AND ALSO Jonathan Pryce in Tomorrow Never Dies
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Correction to the correction: Idris Elba is a rapping zombie cyborg
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
All British people gain this ability on their 10,000th pint
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Oi, me ol mate from Eton, Cyborg Idris
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Filipe Furtado @filipefurtado.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
On Adam Wingard’s frustrating new movie Onslaught.
anotacoescinefilo.substack.com
A Promise Never Delivered
On Adam Wingard’s Onslaught
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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
MY WIFE CRIES: Even without a more overly mystical framework, Schanelec’s ability to draw out the quietly confounding nature of relationships is so achingly evocative, here using dialogue as acknowledgment of all that is inexpressible; beautifully strange.
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Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tien-hsing @swenryan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
FATHERLAND: By syncing the concision of his runtime to that of his narrative, Pawlikowski somehow finds the proper frame for a roiling mass of historical and personal struggles only barely suppressed beneath immaculate surfaces; very tidy yet expansive.
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Can't wait till we go back to The Vroom Vroom Boys and nobody mentions there's sci-fi mutants running around now
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
AH ALLO AT
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Oi, shes me sistah" "Oi, thats me bleedin bruva that is" "Oi, and bob's yer uncle" "Please kill me"
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
He has forsaken The People
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oi, the Mackarainer
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
aw man Wong Kar-Wai's futzing with the color balances again
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Me watching this
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
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Carl Garcia @carlinspace.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
US going behind the UK's back to get a eugenicist virus, actually yes, the geopolitics make more sense this time than the previous movie
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