A swing and a miss this boring noir drama is brimming with quality visuals and A list talent. Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, and Cate Blanchett put the story through its paces and make it watchable to a point, but it is a hard watch.
Thriller
Encounter
There’s few things more annoying than the cinematic bait and switch; setting up the idea of one movie in the minds of an audience, then delivering something else. Sometimes it’s because film-makers or studios change their minds, or sometimes the product doesn’t fit the marketplace; delivering a trailer for Sweeney Todd that provided no hint…
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Review: Nightmare Alley
Nightmare Alley is Guillermo del Toro’s followup to his surprise Oscar winner The Shape of Water. It serves as both a remake of the 1947 film noir of the same name and a new adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel from a year earlier, with the beloved filmmaker delivering […]
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Infinite
Antoine Fuqua’s Infinite is a sci-fi action flick that imagines a world of reincarnated souls where a group of people called Infinites have the ability to remember their past lives. Within this group, there are two subgroups; the “believers,” who view their ability as a gift, and “nihilists” […]
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Review of “Pig” on Hulu: Unique and Effective Storytelling
Pig tells a compelling story in a unique way, focusing more on the quiet moments to explore tragedy and grief without hitting us over the head with what it wants to say. Is it worthy of your next watch? Let’s find out…
Spoiler-Free Review of “Pig” on Hulu: Unique and Effective Storytelling
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REVIEW: “ENCOUNTER” (2021)
Well to say this film went into the unexpected might not quite sum up completely as writers Joe Barton and Michael Pearce, whom directs as well, take us on a road trip journey of science fiction – adding in a very personal side to the lead character, that at first is just thought of as […]
REVIEW: “ENCOUNTER” (2021) Amazon Films
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HOUSE OF GUCCI
What in the world is House of Gucci about? On the surface House of Gucci is inspired by the true story of the Gucci family, a one-time dynasty that fell once family members started backstabbing each other with backroom dealings and buyouts. But what is the movie up to? What does it hope to gain by telling this story […]
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The Nature of Violence & Fate in No Country for Old Men
I have always been a huge fan of The Coen Brothers and a lot of that is due to my Dad who introduced Fargo, Oh Brother Where Art Thou and The Big Lebowski into our household. I always got excited when a new film of theirs was announced. Ethan Coen appears to have retired from […]
Can’t Stop What’s Comin: The Nature of Violence & Fate in No Country for Old Men
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Dead Silence
There doesn’t seem to be much love in the world for killer doll movie Dead Silence. The film-makers (Leigh Whannell, James Wan) went on to bigger and better things, and disowned this early effort as mangled by studio interference, but while the creative forces may not have been satisfied with the end product, Dead Silence […]
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Beasts Clawing at Straws
The presence of 2021 Oscar-winner Yuh-Jung Youn, now forever to be knows as the ‘granny from Minari’, is the obvious selling point for Kim Yong-hoon’s assured debut feature. But there’s a lot more going on here, and the long-time Brad Pitt fan only features in a few scenes, although her character is certainly memorable and […]
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The Man Standing Next
It took a bit of cajoling to get me to review this South Korean political thriller because…well, because it’s a South Korean political thriller. This is a hard sell, because while most of the world is hard-wired into US politics, the development of the Korean CIA and the abuse of presidential power is a rather […]
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Barbarians (2021)
In an executive housing complex near a Druidic stone, two middle-class couples meet for a dinner party to eat, drink wine and – hopefully – sign papers which will secure one of the pairs owning their new home. But as the evening draws on, with New Age drumming nearby, relationships unfurl to […]
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Halloween Kills
Halloween Kills brings the terror back to Haddonfield in the sequel to 2018’s Halloween – the true sequel to the 1978 classic of the same name. Like the 1981 sequel, this story picks up the same night the events of 2018’s terror took place. We last saw Michael Myers trapped in a burning basement of […]
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“The Mad Women’s Ball” (2021)
Treatment of mental illnesses has never been straightforward. Through prescribed medicines, it keeps the insane mind in control, but only temporarily, until the sanity goes away completely. There is always the question, whether doctors do everything possible to help the patients before releasing them back to society, or it’s […]
Film Review: “The Mad Women’s Ball” (2021)
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Marathon Man
As I continue revisiting my favorite movies of the past, the next one up is Marathon Man, from 1976. This isn’t one of the small number of films that I’ve seen countless times, but I have seen it several times. I’d guess this most recent time was the fourth or fifth time I’ve watched it […]
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Film Review: “The Guilty”
The job of a 911 dispatcher is not easy, especially when they have to deal with an extreme situation where someone requires emergency assistance and guidance and no one is around. This is when the skill of a dispatcher will be tested if he can manage the tense situation […]
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No Time to Die
No Time to Die is the 25th Bond movie and Daniel Craig’s final film as the suave superspy. Craig’s films started in 2006 with Casino Royal and the seeds planted in that film grew over Bond’s next three films and are at the center of his emotional/internal conflict in No Time to Die. The film […]
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Turkish Thriller Only Gives Up its “Grudge” at the End
The Turkish police procedural “Grudge” toys with the idea of really saying something blunt and chilling about Turkish justice, Turkish policing and the powerlessness of The People, and only loses its nerve in the third act. The ending is the final “cop out” of this decently-plotted Around the World with Netflix thriller, titled “Kin” in […]
Netflixable? Turkish Thriller Only Gives Up its “Grudge” at the End
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TITANE
Titane is a complex film, one that doesn’t hold back in its portrayal of unconditional love. The bold and sometimes intense imagery of the human body put on display in the film is an unwavering/uncompromising vision. That is the vision of the director, Julia Ducournau. Released to critical acclaim and even winning the palm’d’or at the […]
‘Titane’ and the Politics of Dancing
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The Guilty
Well damn. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Joe, a disgraced cop who’s been busted down to dispatch duty, manning the 911 desk until he can clear his name. On his last shift before he’ll get his day in court, he takes a call that will change his life. On the other end of the phone, Emily whispers […]
