KCFCC 56th Annual James Loutzenhiser Awards

The Kansas City Film Critics Circle met for the 56th time for our annual James Loutzenhiser Awards on Sunday, January 16th. Winners awarded included Drive My Car, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Mass, Licorice Pizza, Summer of Soul, West Side Story, Flee, and The Power of the Dog which took home awards for film, director, and lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

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Drive My Car

  • Title: Drive My Car
  • IMDb: link

Movies find you in interesting ways. Drive My Car is the film I’d been searching for through all of 2021, a true cinematic experience that enveloped me, taking me on a completely unexpected journey built on strong storytelling and great performances.

Adapting Haruki Murakami‘s short story, writer/director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi delivers a beautiful look at loss, moving on, and the unexpected relationships that form when you least expect them. Our main character is Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director. The script spends more than a half-hour developing his relationship to his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), including some shocking discoveries by Kafuku, which works as backstory for the main film still yet to come, but is still presented with such care it could easily have been fleshed out into its own film.

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Suicide Squad #11

The big throwdown between teams assembled by Amanda Waller and Rick Flag is put off for one more issue (which does kill some of the momentum of the ongoing arc) as Flag waits for Peacemaker to try and convince Bloodsport to join their side and Waller sends her team to Earth-8 to fight a variety of odd-ball characters like the Retaliators as some form of audition to prove they have what it takes to be part of her team going forward (but with Flag’s team now assembled and hitting her secret base, it doesn’t look like she has much of a choice).

The issue continues Ambush Bug‘s narration which has some fun moments, especially during the introduction of the various Earth-8 characters and we also get more of the turmoil within Waller’s team which includes those loyal to Flag’s point of view.

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Naomi – Don’t Believe Everything You Think

  • Title: Naomi – Don’t Believe Everything You Think
  • wiki: link

Based on the six-issue mini-series by Brian Michael Bendis and David Walker, the opening episode of The CW’s latest super-hero series introduces us to adopted teenager, and Superman mega-fan, Naomi McDuffie (Kaci Walfall). There are some differences to the original comic as Superman is more myth than fact in this reality (making you wonder which world in the Arrowverse Naomi takes place in) adding a different take on Naomi missing the Man of Steel’s appearance in the out-of-way town of Port Oswego when even several witnesses are willing to believe was some kind of stunt.

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