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Enter the Dragon
(1973)
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Russell Davies
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Rotten in all the ways you'd expect a Hollywood-backed, Hong Kong-based karate sonata to be; and old not only because its spirit is early, rudimentary James Bond, but also... [because] the whole exercise seems to belong to an already musty past
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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2/5
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Allelujah
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Richard Eyre’s film is jarringly uneven: such a collision of tones and conflicting messages that it undermines its own earnest coda in support of the NHS.
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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3/5
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Winners
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Storywise it’s a slip of a thing, but it gains considerable appeal from its young, non-professional cast.
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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4/5
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Other People's Children
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Deftly written, directed with a light hand and acted with honesty and heart, the picture captures moments of acute sadness without ever sinking into sentimentality.
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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3/5
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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Billy’s inane babbling gets a little wearing, but the action sequences, featuring dragon-based mayhem, cyclopes and an army of formidable hell unicorns hopped up on candy, are pacy and fun.
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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4/5
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Rye Lane
(2023)
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Mark Kermode
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Will leave you with a smile on your face, a spring in your step and (hopefully) a renewed confidence in next-wave British film-making.
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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4/5
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Pearl
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Goth is riotously entertaining throughout, but two specific scenes, in both of which the camera rests solely on her face for an extended shot, capture the full force of her unnerving talent.
Posted Mar 18, 2023
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3/5
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The Middle Man
(2021)
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Wendy Ide
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Feels oddly rootless, never quite persuading as a piece of small-town Americana. Still, it is ruefully entertaining and looks terrific, with a colour palette of sullen blues and ill-natured yellows.
Posted Mar 12, 2023
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2/5
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Scream VI
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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The only notable development is just how rapidly a satirical skewering of genre formulas can become thuddingly formulaic.
Posted Mar 12, 2023
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3/5
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Champions
(2023)
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Mark Kermode
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What makes Champions a treat is the deftness with which Mark Rizzo’s script sidesteps sentimentality in favour of something more raucously truthful...
Posted Mar 12, 2023
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4/5
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Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
(2019)
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Wendy Ide
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The story behind Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is almost as heartwarming as the tale that it tells...
Posted Mar 12, 2023
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The Dark Angel
(1935)
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C.A. Lejeune
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The whole picture of one of those refined, middle-class pictures which Mr. Goldwyn does so well.
Posted Mar 10, 2023
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953)
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C.A. Lejeune
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes left no impression on me.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
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Lovers Like Us
(1975)
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Philip French
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Rarely have so many unpleasant adults, self-regarding teenagers and cruel children been herded together, though there is little sign that Lang is aware that he is regaling us with a almost Swiftian misanthropy.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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One Sings, the Other Doesn't
(1977)
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Philip French
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Serious issues are adroitly skirted around and the picture has about it a curious passivity at odds with its evident message about the painful achievement on self-hood and independence.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Outrageous!
(1977)
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Philip French
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[The] cabaret scenes and Russell's genial presence keep the movie afloat while at the same time torpedoing its serious aspirations.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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2/5
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Project Wolf Hunting
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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The inventively relentless action is rather let down by a screenplay that is leakier than a minor supporting character after one of the many stab rampages.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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4/5
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Subject
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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It’s thought-provoking stuff, which also explores our own role, as audience members, in the voracious demand for other people’s stories.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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3/5
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I'M FINE (Thanks for Asking)
(2021)
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Wendy Ide
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A little rough around the edges certainly, but spirited and authentic, this is a low-budget African American indie that has a kinship with the Dardenne brothers’ brand of breadline urgency.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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4/5
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Electric Malady
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Lidén sidesteps the medical science around this somewhat contested disease, instead adopting a creative, dreamily poetic approach to evoking William’s lonely existence.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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4/5
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Close
(2022)
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Mark Kermode
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Builds upon the promise of 2018’s Girl, confirming Dhont as a deft and empathetic chronicler of the tumultuous anguish and ecstasy of adolescence.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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3/5
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Creed III
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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Jordan is doing double duty here, directing as well as starring in this solidly by-numbers chapter in the ongoing Creed saga.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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9 to 5
(1980)
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Philip French
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An ill-concieved mixture of How to Succeed in business and under-plotted black comedy.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Thelma & Louise
(1991)
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Philip French
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An exhilarating feminist movie, directed by Ridley Scott from a knowing screenplay by Callie Khouri that's designed to appeal to the outlaw lurking in all of us.
Posted Feb 28, 2023
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3/5
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What's Love Got to Do with It?
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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The sparky chemistry between James and Latif leaves few surprises in how it all pans out, but it’s an unexpectedly, disarmingly sweet film.
Posted Feb 26, 2023
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3/5
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The Independent
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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If nothing else, this solid, by-numbers political thriller serves as a star-making vehicle for British actor Jodie Turner-Smith, who is nothing short of mesmerising as dogged cub reporter Elisha James.
Posted Feb 26, 2023
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3/5
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Cocaine Bear
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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It may not be Grizzly Man meets Scarface, but it leaves Snakes on a Plane standing on the runway.
Posted Feb 26, 2023
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4/5
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Joyland
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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The picture transcends the tragic romance narrative, to achieve something rather more complex and satisfying.
Posted Feb 26, 2023
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2/5
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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The film’s main asset is Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror: his performance, with its velvet-soft line deliveries and unfathomable, boundless rage, is the magnetic core of this incoherent effects-dump of a movie.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
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4/5
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The Inspection
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Fiercely candid, in its condemnation of the brutality that is enmeshed in the training programme, and in its celebration of the bonds and brotherhood that grow between fellow cadets.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
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3/5
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Nostalgia
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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[A] meandering but richly detailed drama.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
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3/5
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The Son
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Zeller explores how sadness repels; how people involuntarily recoil from depression, perpetuating the isolation of the sufferer.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
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4/5
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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
(2021)
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Mark Kermode
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A joyous juxtaposition of quotidian, vérité-style dialogue and fancifully inventive visuals that hits a tragicomic sweet spot.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
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4/5
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Sharper
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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There’s much to enjoy here.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
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Godzilla
(1998)
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Philip French
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Godzilla is a dull film, the humour as plodding as the creature's ponderous steps, the script poorly thought through, the action infelicitous, the special effects less than breathtaking.
Posted Feb 15, 2023
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2/5
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Somebody I Used To Know
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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It’s a wasted opportunity. Brie is clearly a gifted comic actress who deserves better material than this.
Posted Feb 12, 2023
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4/5
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Nothing Lasts Forever
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Once in a while there comes a documentary that has the potential to permanently shift the way you look at its subject. Nothing Lasts Forever is one of them.
Posted Feb 12, 2023
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2/5
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Epic Tails
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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The decent quality of the animation of this English-language French production is rather let down by some shockingly poor voice performances and a couple of ear-bleeding musical numbers.
Posted Feb 12, 2023
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5/5
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Blue Jean
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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It’s as persuasive as it is powerful.
Posted Feb 12, 2023
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5/5
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Women Talking
(2022)
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Mark Kermode
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A tale that is at once timely and timeless.
Posted Feb 12, 2023
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2/5
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Magic Mike's Last Dance
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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You’ll need a high tolerance for montage sequences and for the alarmingly priapic personal-space-invading exertions of Mike and his boys.
Posted Feb 12, 2023
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Requiem for a Heavyweight
(1962)
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Penelope Gilliatt
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It's a story like Pagliacci. It has pathos, it has heart. (As usual, when he's forced to lift his eyes from the camerawork he realises the film is pretty terrible.)
Posted Feb 08, 2023
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4/5
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Harnesses the familiar appeal of the self-aggrandising feline (Antonio Banderas), while also adopting a distinctive and original graphic visual style.
Posted Feb 06, 2023
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4/5
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Knock at the Cabin
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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As the film’s bleak momentum builds, so does a tsunami swell of existential dread. It’s Shyamalan’s most contained and efficient picture in a while.
Posted Feb 06, 2023
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3/5
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Husband
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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The humour is of the squirmingly uncomfortable variety.
Posted Feb 06, 2023
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3/5
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The Whale
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Its redeeming strength [is] the authentically knotty characters and the performances that inhabit them.
Posted Feb 06, 2023
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4/5
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EO
(2022)
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Mark Kermode
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What is clear is that this donkey’s-eye view of the world sees mankind in all its madness; the laughter and the cruelty; the kindness and the killing (it’s not just animals who suffer sudden death); the love and the hatred intertwined.
Posted Feb 06, 2023
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4/5
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Saint Omer
(2022)
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Wendy Ide
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Diop deftly depicts the two women as distorted mirror images of each other: Rama recognises something in Laurence even as she abhors her crime.
Posted Feb 04, 2023
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Wild Things
(1998)
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Martin Bright
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McNaughton admits he just wanted to make a slick Hollywood thriller, but what you get is an ultraviolet John Hughes teen movie with Vaseline on the lens. Yuk.
Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Diabolique
(1955)
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C.A. Lejeune
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The director has shown already, in The Wages of Fear, how splendidly he can manipulate tricks of suspense and shock, and if in the present case these tricks are used in the telling of a tale of smaller size, they are... no less effective.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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