One of the main problems when it comes to remaking huge, unsubtle sci-fi action movies from the 80s and 90s is that they tend to lose the bolshy personality and razor wit that made them so distinctive in the first place. Take both Robocop and Total Recall for example: two undisputed bangers from Paul Verhoven […]
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Jennifer Lawrence already had a billion-dollar franchise, an Academy Award, and worldwide acclaim to her name before turning 30. Now fully transitioned into adult roles, Lynne Ramsey’s singular and challenging Die My Love might be the defining performance of Lawrence’s career.
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Jennifer Lawrence is a force of nature in #DieMyLove, a tumultuous tale of postpartum depression. The portrayal is effective, albeit frustrating (rightfully so). But I wish there was more of a script & a story to hold it all together. Particularly as things start to fall apart.
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Quirky imprint A24 released this Peter Strickland opus in the U.S, now screening (Nov 2025) on the BBC iplayer; for fans of his previous ventures post 2009’s Katalin Varga, like Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy, it proved an enticing prospect. While Ben Wheatley’s output has been variable (Rebecca, In The Earth, Free […]
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The 2025 film, Novocaine, is one that doesn’t take itself too seriously, clearly, and for that, it’s a blast of a good time at the movie theater. Films are fun when they start with a unique, if outrageous, premise, and just lean into the absurdity with reckless abandon. What more can you ask for?!
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In the 1970s, the midnight movie scene primarily catered to bored stoners who wanted to watch exploitative, low-budget films with a lot of sex and carnage while staying up late in a weakened state of mind. Since I was one of them in the past, I should know. However, this scene at the time would […]
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It’s always great pleasure seeing such movies where from the opening scene you’re thrown into strange atmosphere of weirdness, tempting and seductive world from where you don’t really want to come back, no matter how uncontrolled the environment is. But in the end when the film over, you will feel a strong feeling of appreciation […]
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The scary part is the lack of control. When you’re asleep, anything can happen. Your mind can dream up things wonderful and terrible. You can talk out loud. You can get up and move and walk with zero conscious control over your limbs. Recently, I fell asleep at my desk while working on a job […]
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The working title of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindnesses was And. In some ways, that was a more apposite title, since this anthology comedy is obsessed with one of the uncanniest spectacles in a hyper-connected world: the physical spaces and silences between things. The structure of the film itself reflects that interest in connective tissue […]
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Happy New Year! Nothing rings in another year like a review on a film focusing on the economic collapse of the late 2000s, right? Anyway… Montages of excess and breaking of the fourth wall allow The Big Short to perfectly illustrate the underlying messages throughout the film. That is to say, the economic greed and […]
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Burt Lancaster described his participation in what would become the first of a batch of 1970s all-star disaster epics as the worst picture he’s ever done. He declared it “the worst piece of junk ever made.” Perhaps because of this assessment we were eventually blessed with the Airplane! spoofs a decade later. Airport […]
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Saltburn wasn’t on my radar at all until it seemed to take my workplace by storm. ‘You like films don’t you, Alex? You might like Saltburn. It’s on Prime. Good but proper weird, don’t put it on if there’s any kids around.‘ I’d say that put it on my watchlist, but that doesn’t really mean […]
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Milos Forman ran away from his home country, Czechoslovakia, after the Russian tanks put down the more liberal Czech government, and he was subsequently fired from the Czechoslovakia state-run movie studio. His American movie that he most likely felt an affinity for was his cinematic interpretation of Ken Kesey’s brilliant exhibition of the totalitarian […]
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Themes of ‘identity’ and ‘role-playing’ swirl intensely in this decent offering starring the Berlinale award-winning Sebastian Stan, who plays a disfigured man who begins to morph into a normal-looking person after an experimental clinical trial.
Continue reading “A Different Man (2024)”
There’s something to be said for being the right age for a movie. I never admitted it at the time for fear of being labeled a Whiny Little Scaredy Cat¸ but I was wildly unsettled by my first encounter with The Addams Family. They’re weird, they’re imposing, and all those cobwebs indicate nests of spiders […]
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While cinematic adaptations of novels are common and biopics about famous writers are hardly exceptional, a film made to put a real author through fictions similar to his or her own work is something else. That is the central issue in Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka, a taut nightmare that never quite convinces its purpose is equal […]
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The buzz has been off the charts for “The Substance” following its May world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Screenplay. Since then it has only gained momentum, recently showing at the Toronto Independent Film Festival where it took home one of the People’s Choice awards. Now […]
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While the two shows feature drastically different tones, since they’re both set in Philadelphia, Brunson and the team behind “It’s Always Sunny” felt it was the perfect opportunity to bring back a TV staple.
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I loved The Substance for its audacity, confrontational nature, indelible performances and wicked sense of humor. It’s an unforgettably wild ride of excess. Recommended.
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One feels that thinking on a film by the Coen brothers, especially a comedy, is a fruitless exercise. Those guys design their work in such a way that it’s not merely immune to navel-gazing, it actually mocks the navel-gazers. And bless their hearts for it. As David Bazan has sung: You’re so creative With your…
