Recent reviews

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  Raya and the Last Dragon 2021

  ★½ Added

  Pretty disappointing. Along with the recent Soul from Pixar, fantastic visuals are unable to lift this movie from the mire of formulaic storytelling. Steams along at a frenetic pace, with essential connective tissue missing between scenes. The plot feels very video-gamey -- they're literally collecting crystal shards to save the world, like an old-school Final Fantasy. And shouldn't a world where most of the population has been killed off rampaging demons feel...kind of dark?

  I really cannot overstate how good…

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  In Bruges 2008

  ★★★★ Added

  Just spectacularly well acted. Brendan Gleeson, of course, you expect it, but also Farrell. I've never seen him play a character like this -- nervy, not particularly bright. He really nails it. And then two-thirds of the way in Ralph Fiennes shows up! Wow.

  There's a lot of darkly funny dialogue with underlying menace, and you keep thinking it's going to erupt in sporadic bursts of violence a la Tarantino. But no, it's mostly just talking and menace. Also now I want to visit Bruges, it seems very pretty.

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  The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014

  ★★★★ Watched 04 Apr 2014

  A delightful confection of a film. A true marvel, like watching a clockwork diorama unfold, although the cartoony pace gets a little exhausting. Not without surprising bursts of sporadic violence. It's achievements are mostly visual -- probably more difficult than it appears to make a film composed entirely of parallel and perpendicular dolly shots and 90 degree pans. Ralph Fiennes steals the show as a dashing concierge, solicitous to a fault, a world away from the menace he exhibited in Schindler's List.

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