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3/5
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Blood Rage
(1987)
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Christopher Machell
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Blood Rage is cheap, daft and irresistibly entertaining. Poorly shot, badly acted and lazily conceived, it is a terrifically entertaining and gory thrill-ride and at 82 minutes, never out-stays its welcome.
Posted Oct 08, 2024
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4/5
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Challengers
(2024)
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Christopher Machell
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A fantastically well constructed film with a star-making performance at its centre. Not quite a masterpiece, Guadagnino holds back from fully embracing the potential of his film’s eroticism and style, but Challengers is nevertheless a worthy contender.
Posted May 10, 2024
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2/5
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Abigail
(2024)
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Christopher Machell
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A horror-comedy of sorts, Abigail has a great deal of bloody schlock and post-post modern humour with a screenplay penned by Guy Busick and Stephen Shields. Sadly neither are enough to muster shrieks of fear or humour.
Posted Apr 24, 2024
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4/5
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Civil War
(2024)
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Christopher Machell
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Civil War, though imperfect, is a biting, satirical blockbuster that is as much about the alienation of modern media as it is about imagining a second American Civil War.
Posted Apr 17, 2024
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5/5
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Chinatown
(1974)
|
Joseph Walsh
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It immediately draws you into the world of lies and deceit, where past ghosts of detective films linger in the frames. Yet it also feels completely fresh even to this day, and goes to much darker places than the films of the 1940s ever could.
Posted Mar 08, 2024
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3/5
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Ferrari
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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There is much to enjoy here, and much reaching for depth, particularly with the scenes that deal with the death of the Ferraris’ son, yet that depth is too often only glimpsed before slipping around the next bend in the road.
Posted Dec 28, 2023
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5/5
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Godzilla Minus One
(2023)
|
Alex Adams
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Godzilla Minus One is a monster movie of singular power, using horror-infused kaiju spectacle to deliver an emotionally compelling story of grief, wartime trauma, and hope.
Posted Dec 19, 2023
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4/5
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The Last of the Mohicans
(1992)
|
Craig Williams
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Tense yet thoughtful, swooning yet brutal, it's a film of remarkable sensitivity built on sophisticated storytelling foundations.
Posted Dec 13, 2023
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4/5
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Trenque Lauquen: Part II
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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Like the best film noir, with which this in undoubtedly in dialogue, Trenque Lauquen is a film about affect and textural cohesion moreso than logic and catharsis.
Posted Dec 11, 2023
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4/5
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Trenque Lauquen: Part I
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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Argentinian director Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen is an enigmatic, semi-absurdist puzzle that defies the allure of narrative solution in favour of the liberation of loose ends.
Posted Dec 11, 2023
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4/5
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Plan 75
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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This is strong work for a debut feature, and while not presenting assisted suicide itself with the greatest of nuance, Plan 75 is an accomplished portrait of capitalist alienation.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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4/5
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R.M.N.
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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In its depiction of a part of Europe struggling to keep up with neoliberalism, R.M.N. exposes the dark mirror of liberal, globalised western European metropolitanism.
Posted Sep 26, 2023
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4/5
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Rotting in the Sun
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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More than a casual swipe at modern social trends, Rotting in the Sun exposes a kind of cruelty, alienation, and social stratification that is only as modern as the technology through which it expresses itself.
Posted Sep 19, 2023
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4/5
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Green Border
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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A powerful and necessary film.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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4/5
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Hit Man
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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Linklater’s Hit Man is an Aperol Spritz with enough fizz and prosecco to cover the taste of the strychnine. This could be one of the brightest dark comedies of recent times.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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4/5
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The Universal Theory
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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The Theory of Everything earns the distinction that, despite the possible looseness of its title and concept, it is most definitely “something”. In the midst of a relativistic quantum universe, that in itself is a miracle.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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3/5
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The Summer with Carmen
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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The Summer with Carmen exudes an authentic charm in its deliberation on how we eventually deduce the difference between defining who or what we really want vs. what we’ve been taught to expect based on whatever labels are placed upon us.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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3/5
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The Killer
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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Fassbender looks lean and mean, but for all his monologuing he has the depth of a non-player character. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a mission gone right. It certainly has its moments, but The Killer feels like a Netflix film through and through.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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5/5
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Poor Things
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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Greek weird wave director Yorgos Lanthimos hits his stride with his strangest yet most deeply satisfying comedy fable yet.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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4/5
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Priscilla
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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We share with Priscilla a sense that we’re not getting the whole picture. There is quite literally a darkness at the heart of the American dream as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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4/5
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Maestro
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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Cooper’s performance is sublime, delicately balancing the problem of playing a ham while not becoming a ham. He brings out Bernstein’s occasional cruelty and deep depression, which he tends to project on his wife.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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4/5
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Evil Does Not Exist
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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The final few minutes will baffle some, infuriate others, but it will also be the wildness of the imagination which will have you pondering Evil Does Not Exist long after it has ended.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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4/5
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Passages
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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A pointed, revealing study of selfishness and an all-too familiar portrait of emotional indulgence, bolstered by three excellent lead performances.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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3/5
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El Conde
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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Pinochet-as-vampire never rises above the level of metaphor and not a particularly clever one at that.
Posted Aug 31, 2023
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4/5
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The Innocent
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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Garrel’s The Innocent deftly mixes comic family melodrama with genre thrills in this pacy, emotive thriller with a killer cast.
Posted Aug 24, 2023
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4/5
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Afire
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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German director Christian Petzold’s latest is a tense, emotionally fraught drama, layered with smouldering internal conflict that by its incendiary close invariably catches alight.
Posted Aug 24, 2023
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4/5
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Lie with Me
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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A study of identity reconciled too late. In examining the reflexive, redemptive power of fiction, Lie with Me is a moving story of love lost to time.
Posted Aug 19, 2023
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4/5
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L'immensità
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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There is a vitality and a quiet defiance to this kind of filmmaking that is difficult to resist.
Posted Aug 14, 2023
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2/5
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A Song for Imogene
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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American writer-director Erika Arlee’s debut feature showcases strong performances and nice visual flourishes, but A Song for Imogene struggles to find an emotional hook.
Posted Aug 02, 2023
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4/5
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Barbie
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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Regardless of Mattel’s corporate intentions, Gerwig has crafted a warm, funny and cinematically rich film -- if one whose narrative and political ambitions are far less radical than it would like us to suppose.
Posted Jul 24, 2023
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4/5
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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A fascinating and accomplished cinematic object, but as a study of greatness, Oppenheimer’s subject is often obscured by its author’s auteurist preoccupations.
Posted Jul 24, 2023
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4/5
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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Dead Reckoning almost by default easily outclasses every other non-animated action film this year, with the much-touted bike-to-parachute stunt just as deranged and thrilling as anything else Cruise has attempted in the series to date.
Posted Jul 13, 2023
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4/5
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The Damned Don't Cry
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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An intense simmering of emotion, underscored by Selim and Fatima-Zahra’s unbearable emotional and material precarity.
Posted Jul 10, 2023
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3/5
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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The Last Crusade will always be the natural ending to the series, but if we must have another last one, Dial of Destiny is about as fitting a final entry as we could hope for, if a minor one.
Posted Jun 29, 2023
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2/5
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8 A.M. Metro
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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The blandness of the spouses remain but with little dimension, while the leads’ likeability is so doe-eyed and soft-edged as to require regular injections of rote narrative contrivance in place of genuine emotional conflict.
Posted Jun 26, 2023
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5/5
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The Wicker Man
(1973)
|
Craig Williams
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An offbeat masterpiece that reveals the dark heart of Britain through the perennial tension between social progress and the burden of the past.
Posted Jun 21, 2023
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2/5
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The Flash
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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A basically entertaining, but flimsy and shallow object, The Flash may not be the final entry in this long-beleaguered franchise, but it might as well be.
Posted Jun 15, 2023
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4/5
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Medusa Deluxe
(2022)
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Christopher Machell
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A gripping, dizzyingly stylish thriller. With a tightly-woven plot, dazzling cinematography and a razor-sharp cast of characters, Medusa Deluxe is Brit neo-noir at its knotty best.
Posted Jun 13, 2023
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4/5
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Christopher Machell
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Across the Spider-Verse is bigger, bolder and grander than its predecessor, and with little serious competition from Marvel or DC’s live-action factories, looks set to be the best superhero film of the year.
Posted Jun 05, 2023
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3/5
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Asteroid City
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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Of course, the movie looks great, and the comedy operates like a well-oiled machine while never letting you forget exactly how and where the oil has been applied.
Posted May 24, 2023
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4/5
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How to Have Sex
(2023)
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John Bleasdale
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Molly Manning Walker’s first film is an exciting, powerful, and incredibly assured drama. The performances are across the board excellent, and McKenna-Bruce holds the screen with her mix of vulnerability and brash good time girl bravado.
Posted May 24, 2023
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3/5
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May December
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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Irony has a wearying effect after a while, ultimately leading to a flattening of the ethical landscape so that by the end of it we can’t help but feel they’re all as bad as each other.
Posted May 23, 2023
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2/5
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Firebrand
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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Religious persecution, manifest and systemic injustice, arbitrary male violence and abuse can all be resolved by parachuting a modern day heroine into the scene who has apparently escaped the muck of the ages.
Posted May 23, 2023
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3/5
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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It’s a pity that on this occasion Scorsese makes an admirable and fine film, but alas not a great one.
Posted May 22, 2023
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3/5
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Homecoming
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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An adeptly told family drama which boasts some stand out performances.
Posted May 22, 2023
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5/5
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About Dry Grasses
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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A wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
Posted May 22, 2023
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5/5
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The Zone of Interest
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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Glazer’s film is richly daring. It is both meticulous and brutal; aloof and involved; ferocious and cool. It is poetry and cinema, but it is also guilty and it knows that it is.
Posted May 22, 2023
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2/5
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Move Me No Mountain
(2023)
|
Christopher Machell
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Despite bright spots, issues compound on one another, chief among them being the depth of characterisation and the extent to which the film understands its own themes as intersectional products of systemic failure.
Posted May 22, 2023
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4/5
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Monster
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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The care and empathy with which the director and writer, as well as the performers, extend to all corners of the piece is extraordinary.
Posted May 18, 2023
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2/5
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Jeanne du Barry
(2023)
|
John Bleasdale
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It’s the equivalent of receiving a beautiful box of elaborate chocolates only to find inside empty wrappers because the giver has scoffed the lot.
Posted May 17, 2023
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