Month: February 2019
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Fighting With My Family Review — Studio Mandate
I think I underrated Florence Pugh when I caught Lady Macbeth back a few years ago. I think because its complicated relationship with race stood out to me so much that I kinda overlooked her central performance. There’s still tics of it that I can remember to this day, same with her bit part in…
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Happy Death Day 2U Review — Cinematic redo
I don’t think I ever actually wrote about the original Happy Death Day, it came out in one of those periods when I hadn’t the energy for anything. Yeah, I actually have two and a half paragraphs about it sitting in the draft folder that constitutes my recycle bin. It was a fun and poppy…
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The Kid Who Would Be King Review — We stan a legend
The Kid Who Would be King is just one of those films that doesn’t get made anymore. Childhood fantasy that is strange and dark and a little too kinky for young audiences to be entirely comfortable with. Like those 80s Jim Henson movies, and the worlds of fleshy, wet puppetry they inspired. Rebecca Ferguson’s Morgana…
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Instant Family Review — Instant classic
Dammit I was not expecting to cry during this movie. Wahlberg reuniting with the director of Daddy’s Home 2 does not sound like the setup for a emotional rollercoaster. The bland, gauzy cinematography with which these people’s airy, open plan homes are shot should deaden one’s senses. Everything about it seems like it packs the…
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Alita: Battle Angel Review —Soulless wonder
The one thing that works in Alita: Battle Angel is Alita herself. Forget the strange discomfort you’ll have at first to the overlarge, CGI augmented eyes set inside that tiny impish face. Rosa Salazar’s performance as an amnesiac robot discovering the world for the first time is truly winning. Robert Rodriguez’s vision of a future…
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Can You Ever Forgive Me? Review — Necessary
The heroes of Can You Ever Forgive Me? are lonely and sad, trying to grapple with the fact that they’ve achieved far less with their lives than intended. I am twenty four, I shouldn’t be able to relate in the way I do. The title is not just a reference to a particularly witty bon…
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How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Review — Far flung
This movie got delayed a lot. After the first one the whole series did. When the second instalment of the franchise as part two of a trilogy it was supposed to be releasing in 2013, we saw it in 2014. This one was supposed to drop in 2016. It’s a shame really, if it had…
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The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part Review — Superfluous as the title
The LEGO Movie ended by blowing up its universe so completely that the biggest challenge faced by its (two!) 2017 spinoffs was finding something, anything to make those stories feel like they were worth telling. They had mixed success, neither fully managed to overcome the hurdle. It seemed that the LEGO movie brand had decided…
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Green Book Review — Out of step
You know how sometimes you’re watching a film and you’re like; ‘Wow. They really thought they could do this scene and nobody would notice?’
A Grand Quiet 