Category: Movie Reviews
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The Boy and the Heron
5 outta 5 The Boy and the Heron is a fantastical, contemplative, and wonderful animated film from one of the masters of Japanese anime, Hayao Miyazaki. It has stupendous visual flair as characters descend into a magical world. Even with all the trippy images, there’s a dramatic story about love and dealing with loss. Also,…
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Merry Little Batman
4 outta 5 While Batman and Christmas may not seem like a pairing that goes together, there are a bunch of Batma/Christmas stories. Probably the most well-known is the Christmas set Batman Returns, but there’s also the ‘90s Batman animated episode Christmas with the Joker, the Christmas issue of Long Halloween, a badass one-shot issue…
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The Killer
4 outta 5 The Killer, the latest film by auteur director David Fincher, really likes to show the, oftentimes mundane, process of an assassin for hire. Which means a lot of checking into airports under a false alias, ditching evidence in garbage disposals and glowering. This is broken up by incredibly quick and nasty bursts…
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Next Goal Wins
4 outta 5 Next Goal Wins is funny, absurd, quippy and, in places, unexpectedly heartfelt. It comes in a well-worn sports movie framework as a terrible team gets a new coach and becomes less terrible so it doesn’t exactly redfine the genre. But it is solid, and the cast of eccentric characters keep things lively,…
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The Marvels
4 outta 5 The Marvels is a fun and zippy movie, which is a bonus as superhero movies lately have been succumbing to bloat, but at an hour and forty-five minutes this is one of the shortest Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. While it may seem like “MCU homework”, or even worse as a plus sized…
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Five Nights at Freddy’s
3 outta 5 Five Nights at Freddy’s is a strange film, and not only because it’s primarily concerned about killer animatronic mascots going on a slasher spree. The strange thing is that for a horror slasher absurdist film, it seems to be contradicting itself on what tone it wants. There’s an intense character drama about…
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Old Dads
3 outta 5 Co-written, directed and starring Bill Burr, Old Dads seems to be about as deep a dive into Burr’s worldview as one could get. It is repeatedly claiming modern society is a bunch of weak wristed folks and only the sage-like wisdom of a bitter Generation X’er can say the truth. Admittedly, Old…
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Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe
4 outta 5 Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe is a heartfelt documentary about a heartfelt Canadian children’s entertainer. Canadian childhood memories may get entangled in which was Mr. Dressup and which was Mr. Rogers, but it turns out they worked together in their early years on CBC. It’s like an Avengers style team up…
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Totally Killer
4 outta 5 Totally Killer is definitely a unique film, considering there aren’t a huge amount of slasher/ comedy/ horror time/ travel movies. The influence of Back to the Future is readily apparent because the main character keeps mentioning it, along with slasher standards like Scream and Halloween. The winning performance by the lead makes…
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Appendage
3 outta 5 Appendage is an interesting body horror film that diverts a bit into human relationship melodrama and angsty moments between a daughter and mother, but there’s an icky monster movie at its core. The description on the DisneyPlus app calls it a “horror comedy” but there really isn’t a lot of comedy here,…
BigAl Reviews 