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A Tale of Springtime: I loved the stupid posts in the dining room taking up space, but not actually adding anything of value. It's the metaphor of the movie in a lot of ways, that you don't realize how much of your life are routines and practices that are too entrenched to ever remove, but you still have to work around them. Jeanne is played quite subtly, but I disagree with other reviewers that she's flat, I think she does a great job of showing you someone who's process is very internal. The whole age difference piece was very much not great though, maybe cultural, but came across as icky. A Tale of Winter: I think my favorite of the bunch, though I didn't love the ending. Her running off the bus and him not following made so much more sense to me, but I get that it's not the movie Rohmer was making. It really feels about faith though, and Catholicism, more so than his other movies I've seen. Felicie essentially believes that Charles will come back and, through the miracle of faith, he does. Still interesting, I enjoyed the way it explores her relationship with the other dudes, it felt interesting. A Summer's Tale: Also really solid, Gaspard comes across like a very relatable shithead. I feel most folks either were, or knew someone like that when they were younger. Margot must be bored to put up with him. The music was fun, and the ending line of how his music always comes first was great. It makes Brittany look beautiful and like the South of France, with the sun and the colors. A Tale of Autumn: I think the weakest of the four for me. Some really interesting things, but the philosophy professor, Etienne is a real scumbag, pursing his highschool students. Maybe cultural, but comes across super poorly to me. Isabelle also isn't great as she's leading the guy from the ad on, and really screws him over, then acts like it's all for his benefit. It's a weird movie where two of the characters are trying to force a third to find love without her participation at all. It's pretty beautifully shot though, and interesting enough that it doesn't drag.
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May 8, 2023 23:18
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4 Rohmers in a row seems intense
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May 9, 2023 03:44
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Some Buster Keaton: Three Ages is pretty fun. Some of the jokes felt tired at first but then yeah remembered this is from 100 years ago and was probably one of the first. But most of the Roman time stuff, especially chariot race, still felt like gold. Our Hospitality has the nicer restoration, but felt a little too long. Lots of steam engine scenes that feel less interesting for me now. Avoiding the killer brothers was fun though.
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May 9, 2023 04:00
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Gaius Marius posted:4 Rohmers in a row seems intense We spread them out, they also are pretty easy watching.
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May 9, 2023 05:00
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Blood Simple - extremely well made but like so many of these neo noir films revolves around the characters being incredibly stupid
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May 9, 2023 07:55
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The bullet holes coming through the walls letting the light into the darkened room is some inspired poo poo for a first film.
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May 9, 2023 08:00
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Orphan: First Kill - I only saw the first Orphan around the time this one was in cinemas, though I missed my chance to see it there, and having now seen the prequel I'm slightly disappointed as I had a load of fun watching this. It would have been good to have experienced that twist with other people, but as it was, I was laughing my head off watching it at home. I also loved how obvious the forced perspective and child double shots were, though a weak part was the crappy CGI roof and flames when the house is burning down - could they really not spare the budget to build a proper sized piece of that roof and burn it for real? Thief - got the Arrow Video Blu-ray and it looks fantastic - had thought there was a 4K release, but I don't know that there would be much improvement - the use of light and darkness was great. Even in his first feature film, I can clearly see touches that would become Mann staples, and also the influence it has had on later films from other directors.
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May 9, 2023 12:48
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The Bedroom Window Starts out as an alright Hitchcock esque and just trips and trips all over itself to a disappointing conclusion. The main dude is always doing that Eighties Male thing of staring straight ahead at nothing; Huppert was fine as a Femme Semi-Fatale, but I feel sorry for her, I've always heard she is a great actress but my list of films I've seen her in is a list of Disappointments. If you're looking for a films in this vein I'd hit up some de Palma or something.
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May 10, 2023 01:47
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Frances Ha - why is this black and white? The first 30 minutes irritated me but I'm glad I kept going it was a nice film by the end. Adam Driver was the best bit, lol at "would you like to see my room?"
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May 11, 2023 16:50
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distortion park posted:Frances Ha - why is this black and white?
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May 11, 2023 17:51
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Because of Manhattan, I assume.
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May 11, 2023 18:50
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Last Action Hero. A surprisingly fun pastiche(?)... satire(?) Delightfully hammy performances from some good actors.
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May 13, 2023 04:34
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Buttchocks posted:Last Action Hero. A surprisingly fun pastiche(?)... satire(?) It doesn't commit to either, which is the movie's problem. The acting is great, but the script is terribly clunky. It's also way too long.
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May 13, 2023 05:14
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Glengary Glen Ross can definitely tell this one comes from a play with all the dialogue and like 3 settings. But it’s got some fantastic dialogue with lots of quotable lines whose source I finally understand. It’s fun watching Pacino, Ed Harris, and Alec Baldwin all yell, especially at Kevin Spacey.
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May 13, 2023 05:44
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Timby posted:It doesn't commit to either, which is the movie's problem. The acting is great, but the script is terribly clunky. The premise is so good and they do almost nothing with it. Arnold was perfect for it, the tone was perfect, the release came at the perfect time, but the movie just doesn't deliver on the promise of getting pulled from the real world into a big bombastic action movie, rife with bad action movie logic, cartoon physics, and playing on the cliches and tropes of the genre. It's just a pretty standard fare action flick. Just a huge missed opportunity.
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May 13, 2023 15:41
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Encounter With The Unknown (1973) - Horror anthology with Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame. Not really scary so much as atmospheric, and not much substance, but also not terrible to watch. Then at the end the narrator starts rambling batshit insane nonsense for several minutes. Not Rod's best writing.
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May 13, 2023 20:09
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I returned to Hercules Hercules 2 (1985) also known as Hercules the Invincible Luigi Cozzi returns as director to make Adriana Spadaro's life as his costume designer absolutely miserable while Lou Ferrigno has complete control over the script. This is the sort of sequel you expect from Cannon films, the first 7:30 of a 95 minute film are spent on showing you clips of the first film with the lead actress carefully edited around because she ain't back and the film score is completely reused, down to the recording itself. Its louder, dumber, less trying to be a Superman film than the previous one, and definitely wants to be more "kid friendly" in a way that only Lou Ferrigno and a bunch of insane people at Cannon would think being kid friendly works. The film concerns Hercules who is sent on a quest to retrieve seven magic thunderbolts of zeus for reasons that aren't actually revealed to him until the 45 minute mark into the film. He's not even told by Zeus, his father, who sends him on the quest. Thats ok though, because every single fight scene and everywhere hercules goes culminates in him reclaiming a lost thunderbolt, so actually looking for the things is a complete non factor. This time Hercules has two companions, both female, which means "being a useless load" is split across two characters. Noteable Things: 1) William Berger returns as Minos, the villain. Minos is incredible, and without a doubt the absolute best thing about the first film so bringing him back was the 100% correct choice. If you've seen Rise of Skywalker the feeling you'll get when Minos returns and hams it up on screen is what those talentless hacks thought you'd feel when they copied this film resurrecting its villain who was defeated in a glowing sword battle atop a power shaft and then fell into an exploding castle. Minos steals every scene he's in, the script he's in, and his goals and ambitions are 100% in line with the audiences so watching him win feels satisfying and rewarding. 2) This film's efforts to become a kids film basically only pertains to sexuality. Not Luigi Cozzi's obsession with leggy blondes or Adriana Spadaro's desperation to have a single woman who has enough bosom to make her costumes fit right, no just nobody seems to want or have any ability to have romantic feelings. Violence though? Oh its all in here, with a gory fried corpse to start, some gnarly impaled slime men oozing from their bodies, and a skeleton corpse being bathed in a murdered man's dripping blood as he hangs like a pig. Thanks to the films budget saving effort by having a cast of basically just 8 people and absolutely no extras or background characters, and almost all of those characters being women, this film ends up coming across like it really likes killing women. Theres just a lot of brutal lady murder, begging for life, and women doing absolutely nothing to stop other women from meeting a grisly end. They kill one woman effectively three times in the film, and once in what is s a shot like a lethal white t-shirt contest. Both female leads in the film are told to kill themselves by a man in the movie and do it without hesitation. Its one of the more unpleasant films I've watched as it builds. HERC-O-METER 1) Hercules is shirtless - You better believe it. This herc owns literally just his little thong with thigh pads and shoes, no time even for a sword or shield 2) Hercules has annoying sidekick - Two of them. They have literally one pathetic attempt having part of one fight scene and otherwise are given so little direction and have so little acting acumen that they may as well be two cardboard cutouts. The main female lead spends the entire film repeatedly going to the same character to get told what she should do, while the other one dies a whole bunch. 3) Poor Reference Name - Every name that could be used wrong basically is, its an un-ending stream of character names from other myths slapped onto unrelated things 4) Hercules Gets Sleepy - He falls asleep due to being hit with a "Magnetic Net" 5) Hercules is drugged - The film sets up opportunities multiple times, but nope 6) Hercules is sexually assaulted - In a bizarre scene they do the "sexual spiderwoman will kill hercules" but leave out the sexual thing and she doesn't turn into a monster until after she's dead so you're instead treated to a scene where hercules just wakes up and chokes a woman to death he's never met before. 7) There is a Villainous Woman who traps men - Yep, see above 8) Hercules' Nipple Wound - Yes, but its only in the part of the film thats clipshow content from the first film because Herc doesn't take a single hit in this movie other than the magnetic net. 9) Pointless Oath to the Gods with No Bearing on Narrative - Since the gods in this film are villains and really, really poo poo at their jobs the female lead instead makes an oath the fairies and power of goodness 10) Hercules doesn't kill the final villain - He does because spoiler The end of this film is a rotoscoped low budget version of Godzilla versus King Kong and features King Kong motherfucking german suplexing godzilla 11) Bonus Point for Italian Bigfoot - First fight of the film is Italian Bigfoot, so instantly, you know you're getting herc'd Final Score on the Herc Index: 7/10 Final Verdict - Despite being a hateful little film towards women, its somehow better than the previous hercules film and a lot of the other hercules movies because at least things keep moving. FEAR THE SCIENCE OF MINOS Barudak fucked around with this message at 07:27 on May 14, 2023 |
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May 14, 2023 07:25
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Nope - This one was pretty good, like a modern day Jaws. Jordan Peele is refreshing in how he's able to deal with the metaphorical and topical without falling into the trap a lot of contemporary fiction does, where the moral is blasted at you in some simplistic parable at the expense of the rest of the story elements. And it's only stuff that could come from the mind of it's creator, despite being genre work it's not formulaic or stale. Quite enjoyable. Scream VI - Turns out I didn't see the last one. Christ, two of these in two years? Who loving cares, every one of them is "wot if we were in a slasher film and talked about it in a metatextual way?" and then it turns out there were multiple killers or something. The characters in this get stabbed like a hundred times and never die. Boring franchise. Lady Snowblood 2 - I saw the first one years ago and started this one like 3 times and never got far into it before I had to stop. It's fine, not as memorable as the first and I wasn't missing out on an essential part of the Lady Snowblood experience by putting this off so long. I like that they make these films overtly political, yet refrain from making the anarchist character some 1 dimensional moral paragon even if he's more sympathetic than the government pigs. Snowblood's character takes a back seat to the rest of the plot here. Meiko Keiji is better when she doesn't talk but just gives that stare anyways. Uh some bloody action in this one, it's stylish, I'd definitely recommend it for fans of the genre, which is probably you if you're a goon.
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May 14, 2023 08:10
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I am not going to make a large post for Sinbad (1989) but it does have the single worst character I've ever seen included in a film as comic relief who is not a racist stereotype. It makes the first 45 minutes which are hot garbage feel like an enduring cinematic masterpiece he's so awful.
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May 14, 2023 13:26
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Time has made the best joke in Last Action Hero that its ridiculously OTT action sequences that are played for laughs because of how ludicrous they are have been outdone by even stupider ones that are meant to be taken seriously.
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May 14, 2023 19:00
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John Wick 3. I fell asleep in this movie and when I woke up half way through ?? the exact same things, same fights/locations from the first 30 minutes, were happening in the last half. Seemed like a fever dream, but at least fever dreams are memorable. Why does Keanu run like that? Overall, forgettable.
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May 15, 2023 02:12
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Adoption Lethargic, and not in the sense of deliberateness. There's a lot of emotion going on, but I cannot feel it as I should. Interesting, but not great
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May 15, 2023 02:17
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Yes, Madam! A bit surprised that the movie isn't really that focused on Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock- they do most all the action, yes, but a lot of the running time is devoted to a group of low-tier criminal brothers getting caught up in a murder and conspiracy. Once you get past that slight disappointment though it's a pretty solid example of the psuedo-comic modern martial arts movies that were dominant at the time. The action scenes are great and both women do some ludicrous stunts, and the ending is a classic example of just dropping a bomb on the audience and then hastily cutting to credits (another Hong Kong tradition).
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May 15, 2023 07:31
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The sequels are pretty good too, or at least up through number 4.
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May 15, 2023 08:38
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Maxwell Lord posted:Yes, Madam! A bit surprised that the movie isn't really that focused on Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock- they do most all the action, yes, but a lot of the running time is devoted to a group of low-tier criminal brothers getting caught up in a murder and conspiracy. Once you get past that slight disappointment though it's a pretty solid example of the psuedo-comic modern martial arts movies that were dominant at the time. The action scenes are great and both women do some ludicrous stunts, and the ending is a classic example of just dropping a bomb on the audience and then hastily cutting to credits (another Hong Kong tradition). I found the bumbling criminals surprisingly charming and funny.
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May 15, 2023 15:04
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Maxwell Lord posted:Yes, Madam! A bit surprised that the movie isn't really that focused on Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock- they do most all the action, yes, but a lot of the running time is devoted to a group of low-tier criminal brothers getting caught up in a murder and conspiracy. Once you get past that slight disappointment though it's a pretty solid example of the psuedo-comic modern martial arts movies that were dominant at the time. The action scenes are great and both women do some ludicrous stunts, and the ending is a classic example of just dropping a bomb on the audience and then hastily cutting to credits (another Hong Kong tradition). If you haven't, you should definitely check out Righting Wrongs. Corey Yuen made it right after Yes, Madam! and it's basically the HK equivalent to a 70's poliziotteschi, with way less goofy comedy than Yes, Madam! and some of the best stunt work I've ever seen.
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May 15, 2023 15:11
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distortion park posted:I found the bumbling criminals surprisingly charming and funny. The bumbling criminals are alright, but probably a bit too much of them vs others. Balance is a little off. There’s just more interesting people in the film.
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May 15, 2023 15:46
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Just finished watching 'Air' on Amazon Prime. It was good. My main reaction is.....why isn't Chris Tucker in more stuff?
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May 15, 2023 23:26
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Palm Springs features off brand Michael Cera except he's actually much more likeable than the real thing. Fun, short (!) film!
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May 16, 2023 06:43
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"off-brand Michael Sera" You mean Andy Samberg?
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May 16, 2023 10:04
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Carpet posted:"off-brand Michael Sera" You mean Andy Samberg? Yeah, and a quick Google suggests I'm not the only person who thinks they are similar looking!
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May 16, 2023 11:11
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distortion park posted:Yeah, and a quick Google suggests I'm not the only person who thinks they are similar looking! You can pretty much say that about any two people.
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May 16, 2023 20:30
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Barudak posted:I returned to Hercules I read a book about the history of Cannon Films, and according to Cozzi Ferrigno had no idea this was a sequel to Hercules. Technically all of his scenes for this movie were "reshoots" for a different gladiator movie Ferrigno was making around that same time. They bolted all the material together to make a Hercules sequel. This is why the final battle uses that rotoscoped footage from King Kong '33 as well as the final fight scene from the first Herc movie - if Ferrigno had been made to film a new fight scene with William Berger he would have known what was going on and the studio would have had to pay him more. Total scumbag behavior from Golan/Globus but an amazing story.
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May 16, 2023 21:40
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Splint Chesthair posted:I read a book about the history of Cannon Films, and according to Cozzi Ferrigno had no idea this was a sequel to Hercules. Technically all of his scenes for this movie were "reshoots" for a different gladiator movie Ferrigno was making around that same time. They bolted all the material together to make a Hercules sequel. What? What???? This changes everything. A friend and I chatted about this film for a few hours trying to understand how this abomination came to be and now were even more confused. Goddang
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May 17, 2023 01:23
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I remember seeing the movie as a kid, thinking it was a big deal, but also being very curious as to why all the women in it died horribly.
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May 17, 2023 01:58
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Hypnotic gently caress the critics. I liked it. It's a perfectly cromulent mid level mindfuck thriller
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May 17, 2023 03:10
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Splint Chesthair posted:I read a book about the history of Cannon Films, and according to Cozzi Ferrigno had no idea this was a sequel to Hercules. Technically all of his scenes for this movie were "reshoots" for a different gladiator movie Ferrigno was making around that same time. They bolted all the material together to make a Hercules sequel. lmao hell yeah
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May 17, 2023 03:25
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Wait, if they hosed over Lou that badly why would he come back and work with the exact same people for Sinbad???Maxwell Lord posted:I remember seeing the movie as a kid, thinking it was a big deal, but also being very curious as to why all the women in it died horribly. Its the most striking aspect of the film, yeah
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May 17, 2023 04:21
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Three-quarters of a good movie about an escaped lab animal coping with his past shoved awkwardly into a mediocre MCU comedy. Handles the tonal shifts better than Thor 4, but that isn't saying much. Hypnotic One-dimensional characters hurtling through the outline of a story, but if you wanted to see all the world-bending spectacle that Christopher Nolan was too restrained to include in Inception, Robert Rodriguez is happy to deliver. Kept being reminded of 2009's Push, if you replaced that movie's fun world-building with a twist every ten minutes.
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May 17, 2023 22:15
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Paper Moon: Extremely good movie. Tatum O'neal in this has got to be the coolest 9-year-old in history, and the chemistry with her dad is obviously great. My favorite bit, though, might have been Trixie's monologue trying to convince Addie to get back in the car. Oh and of course the movie looks amazing, from the opening funeral until they drive off into the horizon.
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May 18, 2023 01:52
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