This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
It's been an incredible year for documentaries. "Three Identical Strangers," "RBG" and "Won't You Be My Neighbor" have broken records at the box-office. However, news has come out that Vasarhelyi and Chin's "Free Solo" just had the strongest opening weekend of any documentary in 2018. This movie has to be seen in a theater, NOT on home video.
From my review on 9.16.18:
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"If you're seeking perfection, free soloing is as close as you can get." Those are the words spoken earlier on by free solo rock climber Alex Honnold, the subject of directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's ("Meru") mind-blowing new doc.
Read moreEarlier on in "Free Solo," rock climber Alex Honnold's brain is scanned to assess the activity in the Amygdala, the part of the human brain which triggers stress and fear, and the results are astonishing: there is barely any activation in Honnold's scans. This stuns the doctors but they do understand why that might be the case; you see, Honnold is a free solo climber — he climbs without safety ropes — and he is crazy enough to attempt a trek up the 3,000-foot cliff of El Capitan in California's Yosemite National Park without safety ropes, of course.
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