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VIFF 2024: ’40 Acres’ Is a Tried-and-True Post-Apocalypse Story | Exclaim!
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It is interesting to chart our vision of what the post-apocalypse might be. The shortage is never the same, but the outcome always is: we run out of something, people get desperate, and then the rest of the movie happens. R.T. Thorne’s 40 Acres follows this formula, with the shortage being food. The film takes place…
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VIFF 2024: Mongrels | That Shelf
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It is more difficult than most of us know to pull up roots and move to another country. The costs involved aren’t simply monetary. You give up community, culture, and your entire network of friends and family, but you do it in the spirit of finding a better life for yourself and your children. Mongrels,…
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‘Agatha All Along’ Needs More Script Editors | Exclaim!
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One of the great struggles in modern filmmaking is what to do with great supporting characters. Sometimes, it’s easy; a new series can be made where they’re heroes in their own right with a new story, and they can go on a journey that leads them from who we fell in love with to…
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‘Transformers One’ Is Actually Good?! | Exclaim!
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It’s forgivable to be a little cynical about Transformers in the year 2024. The franchise is seven films deep — eight if we include 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie — and most them aren’t great. Sure, they’ve made a lot of money, but at least one of the films in the series holds the dubious distinction of being…
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Cuckoo Review | Movies We Texted About
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[Dan Stevens] Herr König is creepy from the get-go, an over-familiar person in the life of this seventeen-year-old, and Stevens comfortably slides into the narrow void between sociopath and eccentric comfortably; he looks like he might be good, but he feels like something that crawled out of a primordial tar pit, and he’s great fun to watch. …
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‘Out Come the Wolves’ Movie Review: People versus Nature with Adam MacDonald | Movies We Texted About
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“Nature has a way of showing you who you really are.” It’s a simple truth, if a little on the nose for a survival horror film that pits people against nature with bloody consequences, but it’s still true. It’s also a fair way to describe director Adam MacDonald’s latest film, Out Come The Wolves: it’s a little on the nose, but…
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‘Futurama’ Season 9 Review: The First 6 Episodes | Movies We Texted About
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Good news everyone! Futurama is returned once again to satirize the future and the present, and it’s only slightly out of date doing it. There are a few things to say about the show, but let’s get this out of the way first: it’s still Futurama, and if you liked Futuramabefore then you are likely going to continue liking Futurama now. The sense of humor remains…
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Borderlands Review: A Frustrating Film Full of Wasted Potential | Movies We Texted About
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Adapting a story from one medium to another is tough. Whether the source material is a novel or a comic or a twitterthread or a game, there are many choices that need to made because while all these formats are valid, they’re also not the same, and stories need to be adapted to their new medium. Video…
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‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ Makes Nazi-Bashing Seem Extra Fun | Exclaim!
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Since so many countries were involved in World War II, people around the globe have stories of heroes committing acts of selfless gallantry for the greater good. Guy Ritchie’s latest, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is one such film. In this story, a band of mostly British misfit heroes fight against the Axis powers on a…
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The Brilliantly Performed ‘Fancy Dance’ Has a Few Too Many Steps | Exclaim!
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Every year film festivals release a certain type of film — usually a drama starring an actor riding a wave of positive buzz (or established and trying to make a comeback), and they aim to tell a socially conscious and perhaps underseen story. These are, to use the vernacular, awards bait. These films tend…
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Tribeca 2024: Darkest Miriam Explores Grief, and Those Moments Where We Feel Stuck | That Shelf
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There’s something relatable about those times when we feel listless, stuck, or unable to move forward. Sometimes, this is a response to a sudden loss or a not-so-sudden life experience, but most of us have been there at one time or another, at that place where forward momentum seems impossible to generate. From director…
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Tribeca 2024: ‘Group Therapy’ Review: Six Comedians Get Honest and Vulnerable About Mental Health | Movies We Texted About
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Comedy is one of the great cultural forces. It is, in many ways, the great equalizer. In the hands of a talented performer, comedy speaks truth to power, whether that means mocking our leaders or finding commonality in the human experience. It’s the latter of these that filmmaker Neil Berkeley’s latest documentary, Group Therapy, in which six…
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Tribeca 2024: Presumed Innocent Updates the 90s Classic With Mixed Results | That Shelf
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Where the series falters is in its updates to the story. For fans of the original, some characters are removed or re-positioned. Case in point: there’s no Sandy Sterns in this version (though maybe it’s a good idea not to try to top Raúl Juliá). There are also several red herrings that go nowhere,…
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Tribeca 2024: The Weekend Is a Thrilling Film About the Horrors of Family Dinner | That Shelf
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You don’t choose your family. Some of us are blessed with loving homes, and others come from complicated situations. The Weekend, a fun new thriller from Nigeria, features one hell of a complicated situation. Nikya (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) is an orphan, but she’s begun the journey of starting a new family with her fiance, Luc (Bucci…
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Tribeca 2024: ‘Beacon’ Review: A Novel Setting, but A Disappointing Misfire | Movies We Texted About
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[…] The first half of the film does a good job of setting up the two lone characters in opposition.Emily is suspicious of Ismael, the lone and lonely man living in this remote place, and Ismael is wary of Emily because of a steadfast belief in the supernatural, going so far as to warn her not to brush her…