Tag: film review
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‘What Doesn’t Float’ is Smooth Sailing Through Messy New York Lives
All life came from the water. This biological fact of the evolution of advanced life forms is then borne out in sociological histories of human civilisation: name a great city of past or present, and water – a source of irrigation, transport, and defence – is a main feature. And around all five boroughs of…
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‘Small, Slow But Steady’ Is A True Story Of Hard Fought Perseverance – Film Review
Based loosely on Keiko Osagawara’s memoir Makenaide! (Do Not Lose!), director Shô Miyake’s Small, Slow But Steady carefully walks the fine line between biopic and fiction as it draws on Osagawara’s experiences as the first hearing-impaired female boxer. Encouraged to turn professional by her boxing club’s kindly but increasingly unwell chairman (Tomokazu Miura), the film…
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Margaret Qualley’s Alluring Performance Is A Highlight In The Intriguing ‘Sanctuary’ – Film Review
In a luxury hotel suite, Hal Porterfield (Christopher Abbott) answers the door to Rebecca Marin (Margaret Qualley), an attorney vetting him on behalf of the Board of Directors at his recently deceased father’s company, Porterfield Hotels and Resorts, where he’ll be taking over as CEO. In her green velvet suit and short blonde hair—an obvious…
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‘Peter Pan & Wendy’ Has As A Beautifully Cast Ensemble But Not Much Else – Film Review
From JM Barrie’s scribblings to a long tradition of children’s cinema, animated and live-action aplenty, Peter Pan is a long-standing character with a canon that spans over a century. Thus, it comes as no surprise that in Disney’s determination to remake every single hit they have ever had, they’d tackle this stacked mythology next. As…
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‘To Catch a Killer’ Investigates Our Haunted Sides – Film Review
“Ignore the clowns; fight the jackals.” New Year’s Eve in Baltimore. Fireworks. Parties. Falling snow – the blood of 29, killed by a shooter. To Catch a Killer is a modern thriller written and directed by Damián Szifron, who is making his English-language debut with the film. To Catch A Killer follows Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley),…
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Chris Evans and Ana De Armas Reunite For The Outdated Action Rom-Com ‘Ghosted’ – Film Review
Boy meets girl and falls in love. The girl is a spy, and unforeseen circumstances force her to drag the man into her perilous world. That’s the basic premise of Dexter Fletcher’s Ghosted, which fails to expand upon the meet-cute turns action blockbuster concept. Cole (Chris Evans) is a down-on-his-luck farmer who meets the gorgeous…
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‘Moving On’ Is A Meandering Tale Of Revenge Saved By Its Veteran All-Star Cast – Film Review
The very first moments of Moving On are dull, but it doesn’t take long for us to get to the scene that should’ve opened the film: when Claire (Jane Fonda) arrives at her estranged best friend Joyce’s funeral, she tells her widower Howard (Malcolm McDowell), “I’m gonna kill you. Now that she’s gone, now that…
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GFF ’23 – ‘How To Blow Up A Pipeline’ Is A Clear-Eyed Ecological Thriller
Turning a theoretical text into a work of fiction seems an odd choice; here, where the issues at play are literally life and death, illuminating an (arguably necessary) action through eight fictional characters from all walks of life brings the urgent issue to an easily relatable narrative structure.
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Mistaken Identity Comedy-Drama ‘A Little White Lie’ Wastes Michael Shannon – Film Review
Kate Hudson plays a hopeful academic programmer down on her luck trying to save a school’s literary festival. She realises that a big booking like the mysterious author Shriver may inject some life into the dying festival. She contacts Shriver, a one-hit-wonder who stormed the literary world without showing his face 20 years ago. Part…
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Christopher Landon’s ‘We Have A Ghost’ Is A Heartwarming Supernatural Family Comedy – Film Review
We Have a Ghost opens with a fixed long shot of a large white house, the huge moon looming behind. The camera keeps its distance as people scream, run out of the house, and drive away. A timelapse shows a year has passed by the time a new family pulls up. Led by the estate…