REVIEW: Unforgettable [2017]

“Time doesn’t exist at your age” There’s a new “erotic thriller” in theaters this week and its called Unforgettable—a title that should keep critics busy figuring out the most unoriginal pun ever to put their colleagues to shame. What’s glorious about this name is the reality that its attempt to inherently force us not to forget it actually births a moniker so boring and non-descript that we must. Casting “October Road” alum Geoff Stults (who I do like as an actor) and “Grey’s Anatomy” alum Katherine Heigl (who I don’t)…

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REVIEW: Under sandet [Land of Mine] [2015]

“I’ll make it home” War is a horrific reality that forces people into doing terrible things. Everyone sees him/herself as being on the side of “good” and “righteous”—look at the discrepancies from one history book to another in how education systems describe certain events to shine one’s own nation in a rosier tint than it might actually deserve. There are of course exceptions, though. This idea obviously doesn’t work in regards to genocide, but I don’t think any Germans today (white supremacists excepted) believe Hitler did God’s work or are…

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REVIEW: Prevenge [2017]

“Listen, Mommy. That’s how I was made.” Television actresses retain a sense of job security film actresses don’t when pregnant. Productions can work around this natural life choice with wardrobe, blocking, and script alterations. You can’t simply be cut loose once your casting has become an integral piece of the overall work. In Hollywood, however, combating close-minded prejudices, insurance issues, and blatant sexism is the norm. Alice Lowe found this out first-hand, her attempts at securing jobs with her pregnant belly proving a futile exercise. Refusing to relent she decided…

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REVIEW: Mil gritos tiene la noche [Pieces] [1982]

“To Hell with the book. The book says get the killer.” Cult classic horrors are a special breed. While I often see the appeal, I don’t always find them winning me over. The disconnect lies between those laughing at themselves and those that aren’t. I appreciate the former because the comedy is intentionally applied for enjoyment. Since laughter and fear go hand-in-hand (just listen to the giggles following most jump scare jolts of shock), it enhances what’s happening rather than distracts. The opposite is true for the latter as my…

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REVIEW: Tommy’s Honour [2017]

“A man’s got to use every club he has” I’ve never been one for golf—playing or watching. I know many who feel the same and many of those who found themselves becoming fans during Tiger Woods’ heyday anyway. You can’t blame them for it either. Celebrity, national pride, and the excitement surrounding both are tough to combat. The draw therefore became peoples’ desire to see what Tiger did: which tournaments he won, who he beat, and by what margin. Golf became secondary to this hero’s allure like many other sports…

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REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell [2017]

“I give my consent” **Spoilers included** The backlash against Rupert Sanders‘ Ghost in the Shell remake has been fierce and constant—for good reason considering it’s inarguably racist. Is that racism intentional? Not necessarily, but it exists just the same due to choices made. While hyperbolic declarations about it being “the reverse Get Out” are exaggerated on an intellectual scale, they aren’t on an emotional one. You cannot decry people of color for getting incensed when a property very specifically connected to a race other than white is usurped by white…

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REVIEW: Junior [2011]

“I think I’m strange” Writer/director Julia Ducournau‘s Raw might be taking the horror world and cinema in general by storm this year, but its success wasn’t simply born out of thin air. Its Cannes-winning feature takes a lot of inspiration from the artist’s Cannes-winning short Junior back in 2011, another story about a young girl’s metamorphosis. Whereas the former deals more in atmosphere, mood, and nuance, however, its predecessor is far more obvious in its machinations. Rather than present its genre-tinged affliction as a genetic aftereffect of sexual awakening, its…

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REVIEW: The Fate of the Furious [2017]

“That’s a lot of ice cream and Tay Tay concerts” A new era in The Fast and the Furious lore has begun almost four years after original co-star Paul Walker passed away doing exactly what his character Brian O’Conner did in the films: drive fast. With his role shelved by retirement rather than death, the goodness Brian provided Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his band of miscreants remains in the background as an unseen sense of morality and justice. It lingers to bolster the group’s sense of “family” and togetherness…

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REVIEW: Frantz [2016]

“I don’t want to forget him” Loosely inspired by Ernst Lubitsch‘s post-WWI-set film Broken Lullaby (itself an adaptation of Maurice Rostand‘s play), François Ozon‘s latest Frantz similarly deals with a French soldier searching for the family of a German casualty of war. It doesn’t, however, focus upon this foreign stranger entering the nation his army just recently defeated, the pain still raw with grudges strong. Instead it centers on young Anna (Paula Beer), the unfortunate fiancé of this fallen German, Frantz Hoffmeister (Anton von Lucke). A shadow of the woman…

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REVIEW: Sand Castle [2017]

“A war story can’t be true unless it’s got some shame attached to it” Similar to lead character PVT. Matt Ocre (Nicholas Hoult), screenwriter Chris Roessner joined the United States Army in July of 2001 to serve in the Reserves and earn college money. Two months later 9/11 changed everything. Suddenly he was thrust into a full-scale war in the Middle East and he needed to steel himself to that fact. He wasn’t in the Special Forces, Navy SEALs or Marines—he was just a soldier walking onto the frontlines like…

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REVIEW: T2 Trainspotting [2017]

“Friends is just another class of victim” Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) “chose life” twenty years ago—or what he believed was the best chance at having one at the time. This on-again/off-again heroin junkie had just stolen the sixteen thousand pounds he and three friends (Jonny Lee Miller‘s Simon, Ewen Bremner‘s Spud, and Robert Carlyle‘s Begbie) made in a drug deal somehow gone right. His justification: one of the others would do the same he if didn’t first. Unfortunately for Mark, however, that money only got him a reprieve from the…

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