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Bookworm
(2024)
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Sarah Manvel
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It’s being marketed as a kids’ movie, but it’s a movie for dads.
Posted Aug 20, 2024
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Audrey
(2024)
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Sarah Manvel
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It’s enjoyable, the vicious ending unusually doesn’t leave a bad taste in the mouth, all the porn stuff is absolutely hilarious, and its attitude to Norah’s disability is refreshing, and yet.
Posted Aug 19, 2024
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4/5
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Janey
(2024)
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Calum Cooper
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Behind the clashing anxiety and laughter is the moving story of a woman with remarkable resilience.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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Bleeding Love
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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You can feel the history that exists between this father and daughter pairing through the performances and the seemingly mundane conversations they have, which are evidently tip-toeing around the various elephants in the room.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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Falling Into Place
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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“Falling into Place” is ultimately about the turbulence of life and romance, using its character studies and meaty story to reassure the audience that it will all be okay in the end.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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The G
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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“The G” is a sharp and exciting feature. A taut, if somewhat slow-burn, thriller with a captivating lead character and confident direction to back up its chilling wintery craft.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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5/5
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The Teachers' Lounge
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Mistrust is the thematic glue that holds this nail-biter together. What makes the film so spellbinding is the lack of clear cut right and wrong that exists in this conflict.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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Love Lies Bleeding
(2024)
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Calum Cooper
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Gnarly and hair-raising, yet also intense and thought-provoking, it’ll leave viewers stunned from its intriguing opening to its darkly bizarre climax.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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5/5
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The Holdovers
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Despite the anxiety and even sadness its story exudes, it’s a movie so in love with its characters, and so steadfast in its humanist convictions, that it reaches into your soul and melts even the most frozen of hearts.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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5/5
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Its compassion for groups like the Osage Nation is matched only by its condemnation of greedy values and selfish ambitions at the expense of others.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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The Kitchen
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Visually interesting, smartly written, and lifted up by two great central performances, it’s a thought provoking film that engages with its social issues with pointed determination.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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The Zone of Interest
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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The brutal hook of the film is in how it demonstrates the ease in which people, given the right circumstances, can become complicit in evil.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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The End We Start From
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Embodying horror and anxiety, yet wearing a dauntless resolve that only a mother fearing for her child’s life can muster, Comer’s performance alone makes the film worth the price of admission.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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One Life
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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“One Life” is fairly run of the mill as far as biopics go, but it still does a satisfactory job in doing justice to Winton’s remarkable story.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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2/5
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Foe
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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“Foe” wants to be a delicate look at how love is lost and eventually replaced, possibly by unorthodox stand-ins, but it’s a rather incurious sci-fi feature that squanders its themes and setup in favour of melodrama.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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Nyad
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Movies like “Nyad”, as cliche as they are, are very difficult to hate purely because of how well intended they are.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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Bonus Track
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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It’s far from original, save for its much needed queer representation, but what saves “Bonus Track” is the earnest sense of heart at its core.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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Eileen
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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The darkness it laments on makes it quite an engaging movie with compelling food for thought. One just wishes it had a touch more flair to its conclusion.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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Stopmotion
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Style and substance are one in the same here, and that is what makes “Stopmotion” so captivating.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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The Killer
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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“The Killer” is a slickly crafted beast that leaves you clutching your seat as its psychotic protagonist follows his mission through to its predictably bloody conclusion.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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The Bikeriders
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Whatever the film’s faults it is a compelling, even empathetic film that remains afloat thanks to its terrific performances and electric pacing.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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The Mission
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Giving voice to Chau’s personal diary on top of its animated and live action hybridisation further enhances our connection to the man, thus making the exploration of his convictions and flaws all the more heartfelt.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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3/5
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Saltburn
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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While its debaucherous presentation of lavish lifestyles may prove a bit much or strange for certain audiences, its strengths lie in its performances, assertive craftsmanship, and its critical, if perhaps somewhat muddy, themes on avarice.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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5/5
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Sunset Boulevard
(1950)
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Calum Cooper
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Its performances, music, cinematography and direction continue to awe-inspire even seventy three years after its release.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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5/5
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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It’s a film that, through the filter of history, dazzles with its mastery of craft, directly challenging us on how the lust for power can, and perhaps will, one day destroy us all.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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5/5
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Barbie
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Add it all up and we get an enchanting explosion of pink cotton candy fun, all of which conceals a deceptively nutritious sociopolitical core.
Posted Jul 19, 2024
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4/5
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Suzume
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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“Suzume” is an intimate story told in a titanic fashion. It’s artistically dazzling and emotionally resonant on many layers.
Posted Jul 18, 2024
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Rye Lane
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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Rather it plays along with its premise, pointing out the contradictions and hardships that come with romance, while simultaneously building towards a potentially romantic outcome.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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Our Father, The Devil
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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A haunting look into the lengths and limits of forgiveness.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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Lullaby
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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A generational drama about the complexities of parent child dynamics, particularly the much overlooked mother daughter relationship, its resounding empathy is matched only by its astonishing craft.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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Pearl
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Pearl the character may not be a star, but “Pearl” the movie is an absolute blast!
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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4/5
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Typist Artist Pirate King
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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“Typist Artist Pirate King” continues her tradition of exploring the human psyche while simultaneously challenging her audience with her material. The end result is a film that is oddly charming and grows in strength the more you sit with it.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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4/5
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Nightsiren
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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“Nightsiren” staunchly believes that the supposed horrors of imagined supernaturals pale in comparison to the horrors of ordinary people. That belief is what makes it such a strong film.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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La Maternal
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Palomero’s script has a delicate intimacy in regards to its characters and the hardships they are faced with.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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3/5
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Miss Viborg
(2021)
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Calum Cooper
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Those looking for an outlandish but heartfelt movie need look no further.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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Other People's Children
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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“Other People’s Children” is a real gem of a film with its engaging characters, stellar performances, and marvellous affinity for the intricacies of life.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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4/5
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The Ordinaries
(2023)
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Calum Cooper
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As a product of pure creative expression, “The Ordinaries” is a stellar achievement.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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5/5
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Perfect Blue
(1997)
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Calum Cooper
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A phenomenal horror film that has aged, maybe not like a fine wine, but more like a haunted fable that just gets scarier the further time passes.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(1975)
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Calum Cooper
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An extraordinary film that may not necessarily be for everyone – it really does stick to its guns with its long sequences of mundanity – but it nonetheless revels in what cinema can achieve when utilised in service of empathy and experimentation.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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Blue Jean
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Oakley treats everyone affected with compassion, portraying them as stronger than the forces that seek to shame and ostracise them, even if they don’t realise it yet.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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5/5
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The Banshees of Inisherin
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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The comedy is a veil for deep, complex themes that give “The Banshees of Inisherin” humour and pathos. Among these are measured explorations on toxic masculinity, loneliness, and purpose.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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5/5
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Call it a hot take if you must, but “Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio” might actually be the best Pinocchio adaptation out there, and that’s including the 1940 Disney classic.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Even when it’s building up its characters prior to the murder, Johnson’s direction ensures that the suspenseful, adrenaline charged tone attributed to rollercoasters is always present.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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4/5
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The Menu
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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“The Menu” demonstrates how capitalism and its relationship to consumerism can actively suck the joy from creatives, particularly as they attempt to fulfil the needs of the most affluent and entitled consumers.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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4/5
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Triangle of Sadness
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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For those who value smart class commentary, wrapped in top notch production design and entertainment, then “Triangle of Sadness” is one that’ll repulse the eyes but greatly satisfy the mind.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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5/5
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Women Talking
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Powerful, sensitive, and open-minded, it is a phenomenal picture that is more than deserving of its award buzz.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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Enys Men
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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No one is making movies the way Mark Jenkin is, and cinema is all the better for it!
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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3/5
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She Said
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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It has its flaws, but the performances are great, the score is emotive, and it handles its subject matter with care.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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5/5
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Clever, sensitive, and thematically rich, it is an impressive juggling act of dot connecting that does justice and more to the person and movements it is championing.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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5/5
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Decision to Leave
(2022)
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Calum Cooper
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Director Park weaves many clever motifs and symbolic imagery into his film to heighten the tension and keep up the storm of anxiety as the characters’ clashing duties and wants threaten to finally meet.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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