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‘Frances Ha’ at 10 – Review
Frances Ha (2012)Director: Noah BaumbachScreenwriters: Greta Gerwig, Noah BaumbachStarring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen, Michael Esper, Charlotte d’Amboise, Grace Gummer Frances Ha will strike differently in different seasons of life. A teenager might find the titular Frances (Greta Gerwig) insufferable. She does, to be fair, lament about being “poor” as she rockets…
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Plan 75 (2022) Review
Plan 75 (2022)Director: Chie HayakawaScreenwriters: Jason Gray, Chie HayakawaStarring: Chieko Baisho, Hayato Isomura, Stefanie Arianne, Yumi Kawai, Taka Takao, Hisako Okata, Kazuyoshi Kashida What do you do when a population becomes too old to sustain itself? The idealist would argue that you find a way to look after everyone, no matter how difficult it is.…
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‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ at 85 – Review
As impressively mounted as the battles are and as memorable as many of the film’s images are, it’s easy to be caught off guard by just how funny this version of Robin Hood can be. Blockbusters before they were blockbusters (which this was, making back almost double its $2 million budget) aimed to please crowds…
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‘Speed Racer’ at 15 – Review
Speed wouldn’t be who he is without his support network, girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) and Mom and Pops Racer (Susan Sarandon and John Goodman), the latter of whom are great movie parents who are firm but fair and always fighting their family’s corner. Perhaps typically for most parents it’s down to the mother to actually…
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‘Vertigo’ at 65 – Review
Vertigo (1958)Director: Alfred HitchcockScreenwriter: Alec Coppel, Samuel A. TaylorStarring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones The name “Alfred Hitchcock” carries a level of prestige that makes it difficult to view his films with anything but an overwhelming weight of expectation. He has been praised as a master of the craft…
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) Review
This does have the feel of a victory lap, bringing everything full circle and giving everyone their time to shine. Everyone loves the literal-thinking lunk Drax (Dave Bautista) and towering tree-man Groot (Vin Diesel) but it is stoic cyborg Nebula (Karen Gillan) and eager-to-please empath Mantis (Pom Klementief), previously both pretty one-note, who end up…
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Peter Pan and Wendy (2023) Review
This Captain Hook is not a gentleman pirate but a neurotic and paranoid man-child who overcompensates massively for ageing and for his sad history with Peter by vainly dying his greying hair and attaching a particularly mean-looking butcher’s meat hook at the end of his arm. Lowery’s film stands out as one of the few…
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‘Mud’ at 10 – Review
Mud (2013)Director: Jeff NicholsScreenwriter: Jeff NicholsStarring: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Michael Shannon, Sarah Paulson Mud is a coming-of-age tale which is as bleak as it is beautiful. It is a formidable addition to the gallery of McConaissance art (the array of films Matthew McConaughey featured in between 2011 and 2014 such…
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Evil Dead Rise (2023) Review
Evil Dead Rise (2023)Director: Lee CroninScreenwriters: Lee CroninStarring: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher There will never be a time in history when more Evil Dead content is not wanted. This is one of the rules of nature. Evil Dead is a stalwart of western horror media, influential since its inception.…
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Missing (2023) Review
Missing (2023)Directors: Nicholas D. Johnson, Will MerrickScreenwriters: Sev Ohanian, Aneesh Chaganty, Nicholas D. Johnson, Will MerrickStarring: Storm Reid, Joaquin de Almeida, Ken Leung, Amy Landecker, Daniel Henney, Nia Long, Megan Suri When The Blair Witch Project popularised the concept of found-footage horror in the 1990s, it quickly commanded a space in the history of cinema…