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‘The Naked Gun’ Recaptures the Magic of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker | Awesome Friday!
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Spoof comedy is incredibly hard to get right in large part because one must be incredibly smart to write it. It sounds counterintuitive, but some of the dumbest jokes you can think of require razor-sharp instincts and wit, and those things don’t grow on trees. It’s not just that fart jokes require excellent timing;…
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Redux Redux Review: A Satisfying Twist on the Multiverse | That Shelf
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How far would you go for revenge? If someone were taken from you, what would you do to the person who took them? What would exacting that revenge do to you? How much of your humanity would you sacrifice? These are the kind of questions that no one will know the answer to until…
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Untamed Review: Eric Bana Leads a Competent if Slightly Predictable Summer Mystery | That Shelf
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You have seen this series before. There’s no getting around the fact that Netflix’s new series Untamed employs several tropes of the mystery genre. You’ll have seen the series where an older cop with a gift for investigation lives in a remote place due to some past trauma that keeps him isolated from the world, who…
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“The Well” Walks a Well Worn Path Through an Intriguing World | ForReel
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Post-apocalyptic stories tend to serve as warnings that come in many forms; sometimes they are about how the apocalypse might unfold, or about the resources we will fight over, or the people who will be doing the fighting. Whether the future is filled with robots or devoid of resources, there’s always human drama and…
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A Second Life Review: A Lovely Walk Through Paris | That Shelf
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We’ve all felt depressed. It’s a fact that sometimes life will get you down, and if you let it, depression and anxiety can isolate you from having any meaningful relationships. The luckiest of us have only had fleeting experience with this, but all of us have felt it at one time or another. A Second Life is…
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‘Oh, Hi!’ Goes Both Too Far and Not Far Enough | Awesome Friday!
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Handcuffing someone to a bed might be fun, but if you don’t let them go, it becomes a crime, a civil matter, or both. In either case, this is the centre of the story of Oh, Hi!, the new comedy from director Sophie Brooks, co-written and starring Molly Gordon. In the film, Gordon plays Iris,…
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Strong Performances Keeps “Horsegirls” on Track | ForReel
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Horsegirls is a unique film about a young woman’s journey to find her place in the world. It hits several beats that you will see coming along the way, but it gets there with some important distinctions and directions that you perhaps won’t. Margarita (Lillian Carrier) is 22 and autistic. She lives with her…
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“Superman” Revels in Goodness to Find Greatness | ForReel
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There are those who will tell you that Superman is a difficult character to write. Because he’s so powerful, there’s no foe he cannot defeat, and no obstacle he cannot overcome. This is, of course, wrong. Superman is not a difficult character to write; he’s the easiest, since all that you need to know…
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Drop UHD Review | Movies We Texted About
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Single-location mystery thrillers are one of the tried and true genres of stage and film. When executed well, they can be an edge-of-your-seat experience and a satisfying watch. Writer/Director Christopher Landon has a history of taking high-concept versions of setups like this and delivering a good time at the movies; Happy Death Day was a time loop crossed…
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“Birthright” Goes Horrifyingly Wrong in All the Right Ways | ForReel
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There is, it is fair to say, often generational divides. One that we are living through today is between millennials (who are now in their 30s and 40s) and boomers (who are now mostly retired). Boomers grew up in a world that had ample opportunity, and a more fair distribution of wealth, whereas millennials…
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“Inside” Is a Compelling Prison Redemption Story | ForReel
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Each of the men in this story exemplifies a part of these themes, both shared and individual. Warren (Pearce) is a scruffy older man serving time for violence he committed in the past. His parole is coming up, but he’s indebted to other inmates who will get what they’re owed one way or another…
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Smoke Review: Arson Investigation Drama Is Rainy Day Viewing | That Shelf
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The saying goes that where there is smoke, there is fire—a simple adage, and one that proves itself time and time again. When we’re talking about actors, where there’s smoke, there’s often Taron Egerton. This is not a perfect metaphor, but the point is that Egerton is on fire. He has talent and charisma for…
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Predator: Killer of Killers Gets the Formula Right | Awesome Friday!
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The Predator franchise is the platonic ideal of an action horror franchise. There are highly skilled people in the world, and there’s a whole race of monsters that hunts those people for sport. The setup is simple, allowing it to serve as a framework for various kinds of stories. At their worst, films in…
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Re-Animator 40th Anniversary UHD | Movies We Texted About
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Ignite Films was kind enough to send me a copy of their new 40th Anniversary release of the 80s horror classic Re-Animator, and I got to write about it for Movies We Texted About! The 1980s were perhaps the best decade for high-concept, low-budget, effects-driven horror films. There are many examples, but one that…
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‘Stick’ Has Even More Heart Than Laughs | Exclaim!
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If Apple TV+ sitcoms have a through line, it’s that they aren’t actually at their best when they’re funny. That’s not to say that they aren’t funny — they definitely are — but rather that the laughs seem to come almost secondary to heart. Ted Lasso is probably the best example of this, a hilarious show about leadership…