Tag: movies
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Saturday Night
4 outta 5 Saturday Night is an entertaining bit of mythmaking about the first time that NBC’s comedy institution Saturday Night Live went on the air (before it added Live to the title). It is a bit of an obscure topic for an entire movie, even though the show remains popular to this day, and…
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The 4:30 Movie
4 outta 5 The 4:30 Movie by writer/director Kevin Smith is him cobbling together well worn thematic bits from his previous films but in an entertaining way. This is pretty much Smith’s third film adapting his rise from QuickStop convenience store to filmmaker after Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Clerks III so it’s…
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Joker: Folie à Deux
3 outta 5 Joker: Folie à Deux is an even stranger sequel to an already strange film. While the first film is heavily influenced by the classic work of Martin Scorsese, this goes more in an unexpected direction. It is sort of a musical, but not really because a lot is mumble singing and none…
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Joker (2019 review)
4 outta 5 The DC Comics superhero movies have been a bit of a mixed bag of an extended universe of interconnected movies. DC Comics latest film, Joker, shuns being a part of a universe and stands apart as a dark, disturbing, character piece about the origin of the Batman villain. Its influences are not…
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Wolves
4 outta 5 Wolfs is a zippy movie from writer/director Jon Watts, the director of the last three Spider-Man films, and he brings a similar pace here. There is even a bit where a young man is parkour running across the rooftops, so he doesn’t entirely let the whole Spider-Man vibe drop. In his Spider-Man…
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Transformers One
4 outta 5 After several “live action” installments of the Transformers franchise, the series returns to its animated roots with Transformers One. However, there was so much CGI animation in the series’ previous films, that it’s hard to make much of a distinction between live action and animation by now. Which isn’t a bad thing.…
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Uglies
2 outta 5 Uglies is a YA novel adaptation that really doesn’t offer anything particularly good. It feels cobbled together from other sci-fi dystopian franchises and that bubble burst a few years ago. The central hook, that people in a dystopian future society undergo mandatory, mind-controlling cosmetic surgery, feels basic. Even the action, such as…
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Young Woman and the Sea
4 outta 5 Young Woman and the Sea is a stirring sports drama that is inspired by the true story of a woman from 100 years ago who swam the English Channel, a feat that was an incredible display of athletic endurance. The film is affably performed and features impressive swimming scenes as the audience…
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Twisters
3 outta 5 Twisters is the few decades later sequel to 1996’s Twister that at least manages keep in the same tone of the original. There are specific beats ripped from there: interpersonal melodrama and flirting, an opening traumatic tornado to establish the main character’s fear of storms, competing storm chasers (one cool and indie…
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Kinds of Kindness
4 outta 5 Kinds of Kindness is an incredibly strange movie from Yorgos Lanthimos, a director who already trafficked in strange movies (Poor Things, The Lobster), and this is even stranger than usual. It is an anthology film of three separate stories with the same actors playing different characters. There is a running theme about…
BigAl Reviews 