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Longlegs
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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Balancing a mood like this, equal parts terrifying and funny, feels nearly impossible, particularly when falling too far to either side would topple the movie entirely. But Perkins never slips.
Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Space Cadet
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Space Cadet is incredibly funny, but it’s also about someone pursuing a life she thought she’d missed out on, and finding her own strengths when she feels like she can’t measure up.
Posted Jul 08, 2024
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Despicable Me 4
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Despicable Me 4 is full of good ideas, with lots of them specifically appealing to what people like about these movies.
Posted Jul 03, 2024
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A Quiet Place: Day One
(2024)
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Siddhant Adlakha
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Sarnoski and his leads turn what could have easily been facile personal pursuits into the most important thing either character will ever do.
Posted Jun 27, 2024
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Kinds of Kindness
(2024)
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Oli Welsh
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Kinds of Kindness returns us to the Lanthimos who — cruelly, but with tenderness and wry humor — prefers to pick people apart, open them up, and lay them out on the slab.
Posted Jun 21, 2024
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Ultraman: Rising
(2024)
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Toussaint Egan
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Ultraman: Rising offers much more than the average animated kids’ film: It rises to stand as not only one of the best Ultraman stories in recent memory, but arguably one of this year’s best animated movies.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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65/100
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Boy Kills World
(2023)
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Tasha Robinson
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Silly and surfacey, with world-building that’s little more than an apathetic shrug, and a plot that’s largely an excuse for creatively staged fights that range from dopey humor to surreal mind game to a final, surprisingly serious battle.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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83/100
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The Contestant
(2023)
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Tasha Robinson
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In spite of the guilty voyeuristic lure of a naked guy who doesn’t know he’s being filmed, the wacky framing, and the big, bright uplift of the ending, this movie is as frightening as any of the doomsaying docs of the last few decades.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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42/100
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Under Paris
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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One of the most substantive of the many aquatic-attack horror movies that have tried to coast along in the wake of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws… But when the inevitable bloodbath starts, Under Paris seems to be cribbing from much messier shark attack movies.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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67/100
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The Watchers
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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Anyone who goes in with the wrong expectations will probably just find The Watchers baffling. It has its share of creepy moments, rising tension, and sudden-blast-of-music jump scares, but as a suspense story, it fizzles out surprisingly early.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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89/100
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Inside Out 2
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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Pixar’s most emotionally powerful movie of the past 15 years.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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74/100
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The Imaginary
(2023)
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Tasha Robinson
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The Imaginary isn’t as visually or narratively rich as Studio Ponoc's previous film, or as transcendent as Miyazaki's Boy and the Heron. But it does feel like a move in the right direction for Ponoc, an effort at finding its own voice and its own footing.
Posted Jun 14, 2024
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die
(2024)
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Joshua Rivera
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The joys of Smith and Lawrence’s characters getting on each other’s nerves during improbably explosive shootouts is constantly derailed, as the script workshops or retcons every previous element from prior movies into the grand scheme of this one.
Posted Jun 06, 2024
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Hundreds of Beavers
(2022)
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Pete Volk
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An uproarious, deliriously silly micro-budget experience. It’s the single funniest movie of 2024.
Posted May 22, 2024
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
(2024)
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Rosie Knight
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A searing film that refuses to play by any of the tried, tested, and tired rules that franchise films follow.
Posted May 15, 2024
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Evil Does Not Exist
(2023)
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Joshua Rivera
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Evil Does Not Exist leans toward a folk-horror tradition, as Hamaguchi slowly pivots away from dispassionate naturalism, building to an impressionistic, opaque finale
Posted May 14, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
(2024)
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Joshua Rivera
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Every frame is a technical marvel. And every minute of it is probably better spent watching something else.
Posted May 08, 2024
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Mars Express
(2023)
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Toussaint Egan
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A rare example of “adult” animation that treats its audience like adults, and its execution elevates its premise until it stands confidently as one of the year’s best animated features.
Posted May 06, 2024
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Unfrosted
(2024)
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Joshua Rivera
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It takes whatever pleasure that can be derived from a Pop-Tart, and chokes on it.
Posted May 03, 2024
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Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver
(2024)
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Matt Patches
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It is ugly, it is repetitive, it is severely lacking in stand-up-and-cheer moments.
Posted Apr 22, 2024
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Spy x Family Code: White
(2023)
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Petrana Radulovic
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No matter what type of Spy x Family fan you are, you’ll enjoy at least half of the movie.
Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Abigail
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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The soul of Abigail comes, ironically, from its vampiric title character, played with equal parts venom, cleverness, and vulnerability by Alisha Weir.
Posted Apr 18, 2024
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Sasquatch Sunset
(2024)
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Matt Patches
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I wanted to vomit three or four times before the credits rolled, but in an era where even indie films can feel like four-quadrant efforts on the cheap, what a relief that something so aggressively sick and sweet exists.
Posted Apr 15, 2024
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45
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Arcadian
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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Once the film settles into a fairly standard chase-and-fight movie, its lack of character depth or nuance limits what the filmmakers can do to make this story stand out from all the past projects it echoes.
Posted Apr 12, 2024
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94/100
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Challengers
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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Challengers is just plain fun — playful, aggressive, and a thrill to watch. It isn’t like anything else that’s hit cinemas in the past few years.
Posted Apr 12, 2024
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Monkey Man
(2024)
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Oli Welsh
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Between bursts of intense hand-to-hand action, the film takes its time soaking in richly colored, grimy imagery and simmering in rage at India’s inequality, discrimination, and corruption.
Posted Apr 09, 2024
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The People's Joker
(2022)
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Katie Rife
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It makes sense that Vera, a passionate fan of the Bat-verse, would use the Joker’s character and lore to tell the story of her own transformation from a failed improv comedian into a gloriously unhinged trans agent of comedic chaos.
Posted Apr 04, 2024
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
(2024)
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Joshua Rivera
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It’s an achievement in absurd spectacle, a comically silly way to spend $135 million. I hope Warner Bros. keeps burning money this way.
Posted Mar 28, 2024
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Immaculate
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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The part demands wide-eyed confusion and terror, and Sweeney plays it without a hint of vanity or desperation, assured enough in her star power not to reveal her character’s strength and competence until it’s absolutely necessary.
Posted Mar 22, 2024
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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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It’s a franchise reduced to nothing more than a parade of hollow, familiar images, lightly repackaged in hopes that we’ll buy another ticket and try to revisit the emotions we felt when we encountered this world for the first time
Posted Mar 21, 2024
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1.5/5
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Irish Wish
(2024)
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Robert Kojder
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Irish Wish is more like a curse for anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon it and press play
Posted Mar 16, 2024
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Irish Wish
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Despite the lovely chemistry between Speleers and Lohan, Irish Wish did not rattle my preconceived notions — if anything, it’s the worst version of my hated tropes.
Posted Mar 15, 2024
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Civil War
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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A thoroughly engaging war drama that’s more about people than about politics.
Posted Mar 15, 2024
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Imaginary
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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It’s hard to know where to start in describing how bad Imaginary is.
Posted Mar 08, 2024
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Kung Fu Panda 4
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Kung Fu Panda 4 has enough solid scenes to make it an acceptable fourth entry in a franchise, but the plot doesn’t come together in a way that would elevate it to the franchise’s earlier heights.
Posted Mar 06, 2024
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Drive-Away Dolls
(2024)
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Joshua Rivera
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In repeat viewings, it’s possible that this nagging reveals itself to be a void, as the thinness of its characters is just meant to facilitate gags, and the jokes don’t much build out its characters or the world they inhabit.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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Dune: Part Two
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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One of the best blockbusters of the century so far, and an instant sci-fi classic.
Posted Feb 21, 2024
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Madame Web
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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Madame Web might be the most shameless superhero movie of all time... Sony’s latest Marvel offshoot is a two-hour post-credits scene, made only intermittently tolerable by Dakota Johnson’s underappreciated knack for comedy.
Posted Feb 13, 2024
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How to Have Sex
(2023)
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Oli Welsh
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How to Have Sex has a deliberate smallness — it’s about things that sadly happen all the time, that scar young lives but don’t necessarily damage them beyond repair. But it also has a huge emotional resonance that reverberates long after the movie ends.
Posted Feb 09, 2024
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Lisa Frankenstein
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Even though this movie is sometimes haphazardly stitched together, like a dismembered hand added onto a corpse, Lisa Frankenstein is shocked back to life by magnetic visuals, engaging chemistry, and deliciously escalating motives.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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Orion and the Dark
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Child and parent both learn something from the other, and that turns Orion and the Dark from a simple fairy tale into a beautifully bizarre ride, and finally into a movie with a message that hits deeply for both adults and kids.
Posted Feb 02, 2024
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Will
(2023)
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Oli Welsh
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It’s clear-sighted on the cruel compromises of occupation and collaboration, but so fatalistic about them that it winds up wallowing in its own guilt and hopelessness. That’s a dark kind of truth, and not necessarily one that anyone needs to hear.
Posted Feb 01, 2024
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Argylle
(2024)
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Oli Welsh
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Argylle is too winking, too keen to show that it’s in on its own joke, to admit any real romantic feeling or any excitement that runs deeper than the surface level of its flashy choreography.
Posted Jan 31, 2024
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In A Violent Nature
(2024)
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Austen Goslin
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It’s a rare treat and a fantastic exercise in taking a genre in the opposite direction that everyone else has tried.
Posted Jan 30, 2024
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Love Me
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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It’s a daringly weird debut, executed with real style and vision. It’s an oddity that’s bound to appeal to fans of similarly strange high-concept love stories.
Posted Jan 30, 2024
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Miller's Girl
(2024)
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Tasha Robinson
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Miller’s Girl just skims the surface, and settles for making that surface look visually sumptuous.
Posted Jan 29, 2024
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Sometimes I Think About Dying
(2023)
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Petrana Radulovic
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It’s a movie made up of quiet moments: pauses in conversation, lingering glances, and outstretched hands. Lambert emphasizes the importance of these small interactions, and the ways they build up to connections.
Posted Jan 26, 2024
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I.S.S.
(2023)
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Tasha Robinson
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It’s odd to think about how these kinds of special effects become so rote and unremarkable so quickly. The movie’s attempts at conflict and intrigue feel just as unremarkable.
Posted Jan 19, 2024
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Origin
(2023)
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Oli Welsh
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While the film serves the book well, it serves its own dramatic story poorly, and fails as a movie — ironically because DuVernay is so anxious to find an accessible, relatable frame for these ideas.
Posted Jan 19, 2024
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Mean Girls
(2024)
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Petrana Radulovic
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Overall, the 2024 Mean Girls hits the right notes, continuing the original movie’s legacy instead of totally revamping it.
Posted Jan 12, 2024
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