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| EFC STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
31928 |
| Total Ratings: |
248819 |
| Total Reviews: |
28192 |
![[178088034 Hits]](/cgi-bin/gd.cgi?178088034)
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| ALADDIN (2019) |
"It's not bad, but won't displace its predecessor."
Jay Seaver says... "A remake of "Aladdin"? Sure, why not. It's been a generation, and even if the point of these movies is for Disney to continue to exploit their catalog in an era where re-releases and home video don't bring in close to what they used to, sometimes it becomes interesting. It's not so much the case here; like most of these live-action cover versions, I'll probably never watch this again while the original is also on my shelf, but it's not exactly a waste of time even if it's not the only family-friendly option at the local theater." (more)
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| ALL IS TRUE |
"Kenneth Branagh's latest Shakespeare film is a bit different from the rest."
Jay Seaver says... "It is unlikely that any actor or director working today is as broadly associated with the works of William Shakespeare as Kenneth Branagh, and as a result it is both natural and kind of weird for him to make a movie where he plays the Bard himself - there are horror stories about obsessed fans that start this way! For better or worse, the most off-putting thing about "All Is True" is that, for someone who has consistently found ways to defy the popular idea that Shakespeare's plays are stodgy and archaic, it's almost shocking how dull this movie is. Neither he nor anybody else involved manages to find an angle that brings this story to life." (more)
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| ANIARA |
"An unusual but fascinating outer-space epic."
Jay Seaver says... "The opening credits describe "Aniara" as based on a "space epos" and a line or two at the end seem to call back to the old Viking Sagas, although it is very pointedly not a tale of thrilling adventure. It doesn't quite revel in mundanity or despair, but instead plugs away with a combination of practicality and despair, eventually finding a balance between the two that is much better than one might expect." (more)
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| JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM |
"More of the same, but the same is pretty good."
Jay Seaver says... "If you've enjoyed the first two "John Wick" movies, you'll almost certainly enjoy the third - this series still brings the stylish, astonishingly-staged violence better than most anybody else has since the last time John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat got together. It's definitely starting to get a little stretched, though, like the makers are a bit too aware of the franchise's status as an unlikely hit and developing a tendency to wink at themselves. "Parabellum" still plays its world of assassins just seriously enough to work as both intriguing and an excuse to enjoy the mayhem, but it's right on the edge of implosion, and may not be able to pull it off much longer." (more)
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| SHADOW |
"Beautiful and bloody."
Jay Seaver says... "Zhang Yimou's "Shadow" is probably the most visually striking wuxia film since "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", so striking that when it gets off to a bit of a halting start, one might be tempted to consider that an acceptable trade-off for just being able to look at the thing for a couple hours. That it would quickly becomes more was not guaranteed, but it does, offering up palace intrigue an spurts of action that make it one of the best films that the genre has produced in recent years." (more)
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| DETECTIVE PIKACHU |
"One Guy, A Girl And A Pikachu"
Peter Sobczynski says... "In one of the many hilarious bits in the 1933 Marx Brothers classic “Duck Soup,” wacky dictator Rufus T. Firefly is handed a Treasury report and announces “Clear Why a four-year-old child could understand this report” before turning to his aide and remarking “Run out and find me a four-year-old child, I can’t make head or tail out of it.” I found myself thinking about that line a lot while watching “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu” for a couple of reasons. For one thing, as someone whose exposure to the entire Pokemon phenomenon over the years has been limited at best (someone tried to explain it to me once and got grumpy when I mentioned that it sounded a little too close to slavery for its own good), i concede that there are no doubt numerous aspects to the proceedings that would be best appreciated or at least understood by those with a greater working knowledge of the subject at hand. For another, since the film at hand was doing absolutely nothing to entertain or amuse me with its slapdash antics, why not let the mind drift to an authentically entertaining film in the way that a drowning man might yearn for a life vest? Alas, even that was not enough to help pass the time with this strenuously annoying film, a hard-sell spectacle that clearly yearns to be the next “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” but only winds up being the next “Space Jam” and just so that there is no confusion in the matter, that is most decidedly NOT a compliment." (more)
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| TONE-DEAF |
"Fun mayhem around what might be Robert Patrick's best role."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL 21: Richard Bates Jr. makes a valiant effort to frame "Tone-Deaf" in a way where its black comedy is about something bigger than just the funny murder, although I'm not sure that it's that deep: There's more there than "get a load of those Boomers/Millennials and their messed-up priorities!", but maybe not that much. It is, at least, pretty consistently funny, with an especially entertaining turn from a guy who seldom seems to get a role this good." (more)
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| LONG SHOT |
"Bedfellows Make Strange Politics"
Peter Sobczynski says... "Whether you like “Long Shot” or not will depend to a large degree on exactly how much thought you are planning to give it, either while watching it or afterwards. On the one hand, it is a breezy and brash romantic comedy and look at it simply on that level, it does work thanks to a number of very funny scenes and the offbeat chemistry generated by its two leads. On the other hand, if one sits down and analyzes the politics driving the narrative—sexual and otherwise—to any degree, large parts of it begin to come across as either willfully inane or borderline creepy. The end result is a work that contains enough charm and wit to sort of warrant a recommendation but only with the caveat that some of the elements on display are really not going to play well with some audience members." (more)
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'AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER, I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A GANGSTER.'
- Henry Hill, Goodfellas
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