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From Dusk Till Dawn 1996
Saw this in the theater as a 16 year-old kid and was obviously blown away, part crime story, part EC Comics blood bath, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by maverick indie cowboy Robert Rodriguez. Thirty years later, it still hits pretty hard, due in large part to George Clooney’s hard-charging Seth Gekko. Clooney runs with QT’s crafty dialogue and really sells the badass profile. QT, as his deranged brother, is also very good, as from all accounts he’s basically…
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Memorial Valley Massacre 1989
Take a bunch of annoying "teens", bikers, and punks, throw in a clean-shaven caveman, and drop them all onto the grounds of a campsite and you have Memorial Valley Massacre. A late 80's paint-by-numbers slasher with the most unthreatening killer I can remember seeing! The dude just runs around in his rags freshly shaven with a comedic pair of teeth that you're used to seeing whenever someone is trying to portray an inbred redneck. So laughable. The kills are nothing…
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Darby O'Gill and the Little People 1959
Since it's St. Patrick's Day and I can't drink green beer any longer, I figured I'd watch a movie filled with good old-fashioned Irish stereotypes. I can't stand Colin Farrell, so "The Banshees of Inisherin" was out, and I've seen enough of the Duke paddling Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man" to last me for two lifetimes, so I settled for this fondly-remembered slice of Disney childhood nostalgia. Although it came out the year I was born, I saw it…
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Lured 1947
Well this is another side of Sirk I was unaware about. Very much a British Noir that has a cast that was really delightful to watch and you can tell Sirk has total command of his craft here.
I want to state that Lucille Ball(Sandra Carpenter) was delightful here playing more of a confident woman not in her first rodeo and of course still has her undeniable charm. George Sanders(Robert Fleming) is his debonaire self and used effectively as the… -
The Great Lie 1941
“Maggie the martyr. You make me sick.”
I had seen The Great Lie once long ago but remembered nothing about it. I resisted watching it again because the plot seems icky-poo. Too much nobility, especially nobility according to the Brothers Warner, might produce vomitus. But I’ve watched many other Bette Davis movies over the past couple of years and according to the cinephiles hereabouts it’s sorta fun, so I watched it again, with barf bag handy, and by golly, it…
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No Sudden Move 2021
I liked just about everything about No Sudden Move. I was enthralled by a plot that seemed both complex and very direct. It isn't so much a twisting crime thriller, as a film that changes perspective very adroitly and presents new information in understated ways. The film feels like a series of meetings, where the audience are given information, which sometimes the characters know and sometimes they don't. It reminded me of reading George V. Higgins' novels. Corporate corruption wrapped…
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Hereafter 2010
I saw Hereafter in the cinema in 2010 and I was rather taken with it, as I usually am with Clint Eastwood films. However, such is its reputation I fully expected to return to a significant disappointment. Yet, despite its flaws, I find myself still impressed by it. It is one of Eastwood's more unusual films (it isn't quite as weird as the remarkably mad The 15:17 to Paris), in a lineage more akin to the sincere films of the…
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Two Mules for Sister Sara 1970
Y'know, I really need to work on making my reviews shorter. I wish I could get them down to just one perfectly succinct paragraph. Even if anyone enjoys reading them at their usual 4-8 paragraph length, that's a lot to ask of any strangers, even acquaintances and friends, in this day and age of instant bite-sized infotainment on social media and the Internet at large. Condensing everything into Twitter posts is obviously going too far, but as movies grow in…
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Don't Worry Darling 2022
Most of the discourse surrounding this movie is about the behind-the-scenes drama and its disappointing critical reception, which sort of tainted the film for me and soured my desire to see it around the time it released. Honestly, I was expecting to be less than pleased, but I came away slightly charmed by the ideas attempted.
Now, Don't Worry, Darling is not perfect, by any means. I wouldn't even go as far as to call it "successful" in what it…
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Basic Instinct 2 2006
I think it must say a lot about me that I much prefer this to the original.
Verhoeven outside his more genre-intensive trappings tends to be a nothing director to me and Joe Eszterhaz is a crass screenwriter, and their Basic Instinct was something I reject.
This one is very mid00sy reheated IP, a tad stuffy and you can feel it pulling ineffectively at restraints, transgressive is a bit beyond the confines, but it is a very stylish picture that…
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Poor Things 2023
Probably the best looking film in recent years, with absolutely stunning in- and outsides with fantasy elements woven in. The camera work is amazing, although the usage of the fish eye lenses became gimmicky. Performances are also outstanding, with Emma Stone looking most 'different' than ever. There's some body horror, Del Toro is always nearby, and even Nymphomaniac popped into my mind. It's compelling, eccentric and challenging, but the story wasn't always my thing, and as often, too long. What a movie, but not always in a good way.
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Road House 1989
Before the remake arrives I thought I'd watch this hugely entertaining action exploitation again. I sense that I'm probably going to have a good bitch about this new one, though I should perhaps take Dalton's advice and be nice.
When Dalton and Elizabeth are skinny dipping in roughly the same spot Dalton ripped out the guy's throat, I think it would have been much better if the body bobbed to the surface mid frolic.
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