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Godzilla Minus One (2023) Review
Godzilla Minus One / Gojira -1.0 (2023)Director: Takashi Yamazaki Screenwriter: Takashi Yamazaki Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Mio Tanaka, Sae Nagatani As visually polished and park-your-brain-at-the-door fun as the Hollywood Godzilla films are, they aren’t exactly overflowing with big ideas or thematic subtext. That’s what…
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Maestro (2023) Review
Maestro (2023)Director: Bradley CooperScreenwriter: Bradley Cooper, Josh SingerStarring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Sam Nivola When On the Waterfront opened in 1954, its score gained just as much critical praise as any other element of the film – which isn’t a light feat considering it won eight Oscars. Amazingly, it…
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Wonka (2023) Review
Wonka (2023)Director: Paul KingScreenwriters: Simon Farnaby, Paul KingStarring: Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Olivia Colman, Matt Lucas, Matthew Baynton, Tom Davis, Hugh Grant Willy Wonka is an enigma. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), the original adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” we don’t learn…
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Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023) Review
Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023)Director: Paul BrigantiScreenwriters: Martin Herlihy, John Higgins, Ben MarshallStarring: Martin Herlihy, John Higgins, Ben Marshall, Conan O’Brien, John Goodman, Bowen Yang October 9th, 2021. The first episode of the forty-seventh season of ‘Saturday Night Live’ and the debut of Please Don’t Destroy with their short video ‘Hard…
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May December (2023) Review
May December (2023)Director: Todd HaynesScreenwriters: Samy Burch, Alex MechanikStarring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, Gabriel Chung, Elizabeth Yu Todd Haynes’ films are hard to pin down. Ever the subversive, the renegade of the new queer cinema movement has a proven track record of destabilizing conventional wisdoms surrounding everything from sex to gender to celebrity…
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Little Women (1933) Review
Little Women (1933)Director: George CukorScreenwriters: Sarah Y. Mason, Victor HeermanStarring: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver, Douglass Montgomery, Jean Parker, Frances Dee “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, first published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, has been adapted for the screen seven times over the last 100 years. In 1933,…
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It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) Review
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023)Director: Tyler MacIntyre Screenwriter: Michael Kennedy Starring: Jane Widdop, Joel McHale, Justin Long, Jess McLeod, Katherine Isabelle, Cassandra Naud One has to wonder if a review for a film titled It’s A Wonderful Knife needs any introduction, but one must be written regardless. If you think it might have some twist…
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Wish (2023) Review
Wish (2023)Directors: Chris Buck, Fawn VeerasunthornScreenwriters: Jennifer Lee, Allison MooreStarring: Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral, Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Harvey Guillén, Evan Peters, Ramy Youssef, Jon Rudnitsky One hundred years of Disney. How does one possibly celebrate such an occasion? The little studio that begun with animated movies about a…
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Napoleon (2023) Review
Napoleon (2023)Director: Ridley ScottScreenwriter: David ScarpaStarring: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Rupert Everett, Paul Rhys Almost a quarter of a century after his swords and sandals epic Gladiator became a critically acclaimed cultural phenomenon and Oscars Best Picture winner, Ridley Scott re-teams with one of its stars – one of this generation’s leading actors…
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Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) Review
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)Director: John HughesScreenwriter: John HughesStarring: Steve Martin, John Candy You’d be hard-pressed to name a more beloved Thanksgiving movie than the late John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987). For many, the film has a virtual monopoly on the holiday’s cinematic canon (sorry, Charlie Brown) and endures as quintessential post-feast viewing.…