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Don't Look Up: Would probably have been an excellent skit or short film. It does nothing to justify its two hour runtime and indeed just repeats the same themes and jokes over and over. Every actor in it is very good and it's punctuated by occasional brilliance, but ultimately is bizarrely slow-paced considering the urgency of the premise. The ending is extremely good and potentially worth sitting through the rest of it. 6/10
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Dec 27, 2021 00:58
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 02:19 |
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My Best Friend's Wedding (4/5): Actually pretty rad. The main character is psychotic, the love rival is intelligent and has a lot of personality and agency, the man they're fighting over is fully committed to his fiancee and has his own darkness, and ultimately the most intelligent and reasonable character is the stereotypical wacky gay best friend, a role crushed by Rupert Everitt. It's an intelligent deconstruction of the standard RomCom tropes and earns the laughs it gets, and goddamn it all to hell, Julia Roberts is great in it. Duets (2/5): Boring as all hell. Terribly written with unforgivably boring characters spouting awkward dialogue, not helped by horrible acting performances; Huey Lewis would rather be absolutely anywhere else, Gwyneth Paltrow plays her character as if she has severe brain damage, Maria Bello can't sing but the movie expects us to believe she can, Scott Speedman could be replaced by a bucket with a smiley face drawn on it and it would make no difference. The movie is saved by the subplot involving Paul Giamatti and Andre Braugher. Both actors are exactly as good as you'd expect them to be, their storyline has an energy and pace to it that the others just don't, their chemistry is amazing and they run away with the best scenes. Push comes to shove, I'd say just about worth seeing for the two of them but fast-forward literally any scene neither of them is in.
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Jan 11, 2022 16:31
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Mortal Kombat (2021) 2/5: Just a dullard with almost universal bad acting, not to mention most likely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't played the games ("Earthrealm has lost 9/10 tournaments to Outworld"? What does any of that mean??). Peppered with a very good performance from the actor playing Kano, an admirably culturally-accurate cast and some pretty cool fight sequences, otherwise little to recommend unless you're curious having played the games.
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Jan 18, 2022 09:51
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Freaky (4/5): Just rad. Vince Vaughn absolutely crushes it and it's the best performance I've ever seen from him. Killer sense of humour, genuinely tense and scary at times and with heroically progressive casting and themes. The kills are utterly gross and delightful. When it's scary it's scary and when it's funny it's funny, a great time all around!
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Feb 4, 2022 23:10
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Bad Trip (4/5): Goddamn, this is the hardest I've laughed during a movie for a very long time. I knew going in that it contained hidden-camera pranks (which are like catnip to me), but the extent to which that was done really took me by surprise. Every actor is incredibly committed and they actually mined some genuinely sweet moments from the unsuspecting public.
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Feb 8, 2022 10:17
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Space Jam: A New Legacy (2/5): Not close to as bad as its reputation and critical reception implies, while still being pretty bad. I have a nostalgia-baited love of the original and recognise the improvements this movie made on the original, in particular giving LeBron James' fictionalised character actual flaws that he needs to recognise in himself and successfully overcome, giving him a believable arc rather than Michael Jordan in the original, who is essentially already Mr super perfect awesome man who is very nice to everyone and lives in a modest house and could basically save the day on his own. Malcolm D Lee is a good and funny director and some of his flourishes and sense of humour shine through, there are some genuinely funny moments (I was a big fan of "we're in the computer? You know I'm claustrophobic!"). But that being said, some pretty big flaws, not least in the animation which is consistently subpar, the voice acting which is surprisingly terrible considering the seasoned veterans they got in, and the rampant product placement for other WB properties which never rises above terrible.
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Feb 21, 2022 10:38
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EL BROMANCE posted:I don't think I noticed this, as I watched it around the same time as the original film for the first time. Space Jam's animation is so loving ugly it's hard to put it into words. Just an absolutely gross approach that I'm glad is lost to the past and that nobody replicates even for nostalgia reasons (unless they do and I've luckily not seen it). Yes the animation in Space Jam is hella bad, I don't think the animation in ANL is as bad but it's still pretty flat and unimaginative
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Feb 21, 2022 21:10
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 02:19 |
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May December (4/5): This movie is like "the ick" being given physical form. It's very very well acted with a truly outstanding performance from Charles Melton, and great performances from both Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. I was very impressed with the depth of the screenplay, and how a monstrous character was given real depth and moments of tragic humanity in service of the overall themes of the devastating impact of generational trauma and the inescapable hell of trauma-led arrested development. It reminded me that it's always possible to understand horrific actions without condoning them. I found the trajectory and arc of the Portman character very fascinating, a study of how far intensely dedicated method actors are willing to go and how much effort is it healthy to go to in order to attempt to humanise and understand a thoroughly damaged human being. My interpretation of the end of her character's arc and specifically the horrifying moment where she requested a 13-year-old actor with "sex appeal" to audition to be her co-star was that she was trying to get into the headspace of a grown woman who found a 13-year-old boy attractive, and while she managed to get 95% of the way to understanding Moore's character as a human being, and understanding why she is the way she is and why she did what she did, she will never be able to find any child attractive and was getting frustrated at this, convinced that she was missing something that would put the cap on her performance in the film. I knocked off a point because I thought it was a little too long, and there were a couple of scenes that dragged on longer than they needed to. Still a very impressive movie worthy of its plaudits, that I don't believe I will ever watch again.
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Mar 11, 2024 17:08
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