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2.5/4
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The Wraith
(1986)
|
David Keyes
|
It does not achieve the same absurdist grandeur of, say, "Sky Bandits" or "Mannequin," which are essentially live action cartoons. But it means well.
Posted Aug 03, 2020
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3/4
|
Savage Streets
(1984)
|
David Keyes
|
Say what you will about over-the-top enthusiasm in movies like these, here is a woman who is comfortable chewing the scenery until she is licking her lips in satisfaction.
Posted Aug 03, 2020
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3/4
|
Eaten Alive
(1976)
|
David Keyes
|
A film like this endures as entertainment because all the performances are pitched at that joyous trajectory of cartoonish excess.
Posted Aug 03, 2020
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3.5/4
|
Unfriended: Dark Web
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
If "Unfriended" showed this idea in a state of awkward infancy, then "Unfriended: Dark Web" allows it to mature into a proverbial, meticulous beast.
Posted Aug 03, 2020
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3/4
|
Host
(2020)
|
David Keyes
|
Savage has breathed refreshing life into a sub-genre that has long been floundering for new inspirations.
Posted Aug 03, 2020
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|
0/4
|
Dirty Love
(2005)
|
David Keyes
|
Each moment, more unfunny than the last, is a record of underachievers who are so far in over their head that they have lost the will to break the chains of their prison.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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3/4
|
Hatchet
(2006)
|
David Keyes
|
The movie is a triumphant reminder of the plausibility of physical showmanship.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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|
2.5/4
|
Pompeii
(2014)
|
David Keyes
|
Basically a competent action picture that retreads to the safety of its formulas, primarily because it doesn't have the desire, much less the thought, to pursue more challenging avenues.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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|
0.5/4
|
Cats
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
A film that seeks to inspire our loathing for nearly every frame it sits on the screen, and that is before we even attempt to decipher the mediocrity that is the music or the nonexistence of the story.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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|
0.5/4
|
The Lonely Lady
(1983)
|
David Keyes
|
This may be the most shamelessly evasive drama ever written.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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|
3/4
|
Summer of 84
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
There were moments when I was roused by myriads of sly wit, suspicion and even shock, and others when I felt sad for kids who might have endured better by leaving the searches to others.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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4/4
|
Parasite
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
A picture that audaciously devours the force of convention and transforms it into a feverish undercurrent, driving what can only be described as an engine through the odyssey of mayhem.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
|
|
2/4
|
Marriage Story
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
Here are two likable actors swimming upstream in a current that wants to drown them in detestable melodrama, and for nearly every scene they occupy shared space, we find ourselves praying for psychological intervention.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
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|
2.5/4
|
Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
In the final frames, after enduring what amounts to the bludgeoning of an entire idea, one can't help but wish the more thrilling original film was playing on screen instead.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
|
|
3/4
|
The Burning
(1981)
|
David Keyes
|
Instead of recycling the sort of artificial showmanship that usually informed most of the violence in the early horror franchises, the movie creates a convincing aesthetic.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
0/4
|
The Condemned
(2007)
|
David Keyes
|
One of the most deplorable movie-going experiences of my life.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
Ad Astra
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
The movie is an audacious, agonizing, engrossing meditation on personal isolation.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
It: Chapter Two
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
There are a great many moments and sequences scattered across "It Chapter Two." On the other hand, audiences might take issue with there being so many.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
The Lighthouse
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
A total exercise in style, brought to glorious excess by showy performances and visual gimmicks right out of an ambitious nightmare.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
The movie's greatest strength is in how it isolates precious moments among characters - some loving, others sad, many foretelling of darker realities.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
1.5/4
|
Joker
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
If Arthur Fleck reflects the same cultural alienation that creates mass shooters and serial killers, the movie cuts away too often to establish a cogent argument.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
1/4
|
Children of the Corn
(1984)
|
David Keyes
|
This is not a story that was ever destined to work on film.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
2.5/4
|
Tenderness of the Wolves
(1973)
|
David Keyes
|
Part of what distances us from indulging the story's approach is our inability to see him as the madman painted by history books. His crimes are so simplified, even reduced.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
Midsommar
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
As a stamina test, the movie is as exciting as it is startling.
Posted Nov 09, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
Christine
(1983)
|
David Keyes
|
One of the more effective screen treatments of the era, however corny or preposterous it may remain on paper.
Posted Jul 15, 2019
|
|
1.5/4
|
Dark Phoenix
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
A thoughtless and mechanical descent into nonsense, with nothing standing at the center other than a myriad of conflicting arcs and questionable motives.
Posted Jul 15, 2019
|
|
4/4
|
Birds of Passage
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
One of the most striking and profound discoveries of the year.
Posted Jul 15, 2019
|
|
4/4
|
Last Tango in Paris
(1972)
|
David Keyes
|
In this age where the human behavior system is rarely an important facet in film narratives, here is a picture that still throbs with all the pain and misery of its deep emotional wounds.
Posted Jul 15, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
Zelig
(1983)
|
David Keyes
|
If the sum of Allen's career can be seen as a series of destinations on a road to self-discovery, then this strange, off-the-cuff "mockumentary" provides the most unlikely roadmap.
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
0.5/4
|
Movie 43
(2013)
|
David Keyes
|
By the end you can't entirely be sure whether you have watched a film or participated in a eulogy for the careers of its participants.
Posted May 09, 2019
|
|
1/4
|
Under the Silver Lake
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
This isn't a creative dive at all, it is a suicide bomb masquerading as an audacious shift in direction.
Posted May 09, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
Us
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
Peele is slowly emerging as one of the most exciting provocateurs of modern horror films. "Us" is further proof of that.
Posted Apr 17, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
The Head Hunter
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
Less perceptive sorts would have you believe Downey is crippled by his shoestring budget; in truth, he turns it into the conduit for a very solid descent into a thrilling little mystery.
Posted Apr 05, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
Climax
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
A work of visceral madness. Profoundly engrossing.
Posted Apr 05, 2019
|
|
4/4
|
Transit
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
Phenomenal. A near-perfect lament on conflicted human behaviors.
Posted Mar 28, 2019
|
|
2/4
|
The Hole in the Ground
(2019)
|
David Keyes
|
The Hole in the Ground shows a promising talent finessing the notes of his song without formulating it into plausible music.
Posted Mar 13, 2019
|
|
1/4
|
The Happytime Murders
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
90 minutes of laughless, mean-spirited hogwash
Posted Mar 13, 2019
|
|
1/4
|
Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland
(1989)
|
David Keyes
|
If it's laughs you are after, however unintentional, this movie provides all the precious morsels. Starting with the idea that anyone felt the need to make it.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
1/4
|
The Emoji Movie
(2017)
|
David Keyes
|
You know you are in the middle of something cynical when the most interesting character in a cartoon is a walking digital hand whining about no longer being popular.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
Bohemian Rhapsody
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
Decent and watchable, without being nearly as resonant as it should be.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
You Were Never Really Here
(2017)
|
David Keyes
|
There is an undercurrent beneath the frames that goes to the bloody heart of the matter, giving a wondrous sense of dramatic desperation to each of the characters as they move through this macabre labyrinth.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
0.5/4
|
Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers
(1988)
|
David Keyes
|
An insult to anyone in the audience who has two brain cells to rub together.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
1.5/4
|
Twilight
(2008)
|
David Keyes
|
Like most great psychological lessons in the hands of novices, this is a story far more interested in dancing to rhythms than understanding melody.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
Dogtooth
(2009)
|
David Keyes
|
We watch on and on - sometimes in horror, often in confusion, and always in complete awe of its strange and perplexing energy.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
3.5/4
|
Mary Poppins Returns
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
Even cynics of this formula will leave the theater feeling thankful for the chance to engage with a delightful spectacle rather than a pointless retread.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
4/4
|
Hell House LLC
(2015)
|
David Keyes
|
This is not a movie manufactured from within the conceit of aspiring filmmakers hoping to make a low-budget wave, either: what these people have created is a credible descent into the material.
Posted Feb 20, 2019
|
|
4/4
|
The Favourite
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
Lanthimos has made a film that plays like a diabolical union between Ken Russell and Robert Bresson, full of savage rhythms and emotional distance.
Posted Jan 02, 2019
|
|
1.5/4
|
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
(1992)
|
David Keyes
|
Whatever merits we attach to the first film in this series, they are all but abandoned somewhere in the mess of a follow-up.
Posted Jan 02, 2019
|
|
3/4
|
The House That Jack Built
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
In between killings and mutilations are verbal rationalizations that underline the violence with startling clarity.
Posted Dec 15, 2018
|
|
4/4
|
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
(2018)
|
David Keyes
|
Unpredictable and masterful.
Posted Dec 02, 2018
|
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