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| EFC STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
31734 |
| Total Ratings: |
248088 |
| Total Reviews: |
28032 |
![[171975224 Hits]](/cgi-bin/gd.cgi?171975224)
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| BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, THE |
"Six Oaters In Search Of A Theatrical Venue"
Peter Sobczynski says... "When the Coen Brothers announced that their newest project was not going to be a movie but a six-part television series for Netflix—a Western, no less—even their most ardent fans must have raised an eyebrow at the news. Of course, they had shown a facility for the genre in the past with their effective reimagining of the John Wayne classic “True Grit” (2010), not to mention the genre stylings that they worked into the contemporary features “Raising Arizona” and “No Country for Old Men,” but how would their complex storytelling style translate from the standard two-hour length of a feature film to a half-dozen episodes running about 22 minutes each? Those eyebrows arched even higher a couple of months ago when it was announced that the Coens had scrapped their initial plans for a limited series and that the six episodes would now make up a single feature film entitled “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” that would have a brief theatrical run but which would primarily be viewed via Netflix. As a result of all of this, some viewers might be forgiven for thinking that the film was just a grab bag of ideas that the Coens were unable to expand into feature films and instead chose to jam together into one ersatz feature as a way of clearing their decks. As it turns out, however, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is anything but a slapdash clearing house of half-baked ideas. In fact, it is as strange, funny, tragic and audacious as anything that they have done before in their careers and while it is far too early to tell where it might rank within the confines of their estimable filmography, I can say that it is indeed a major work from major filmmakers that more than deserves a place at the table with their other celebrated works." (more)
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| WIDOWS |
"No Shame"
Peter Sobczynski says... "“Widows” is a sprawling crime drama that is so overstuffed with characters and plot threads that it feels at times as if it is trying to cram an entire TV season’s worth of material into a 2-hour running time. Actually, that is pretty much the case here as the film is based on a six-episode 1983 British television series (written by Lynda La Plante before achieving international success with the beloved “Prime Suspect” franchise) that has been updated and transplanted to Chicago by a high-powered team of talents that includes Steve McQueen, the acclaimed director of “Hunger,” “Shame” and the award-winning “12 Years a Slave,” best-selling author Gillian Flynn and a top-notch cast featuring the likes of Viola Davis, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall and Liam Neeson. The result is an undeniably ambitious film but also an occasionally wobbly and uneven one that is at its best when it goes about being a straightforward heist thriller but which stumbles when it strains to add layers of unnecessary artistic pretense to proceedings that might have been a lot more effective and affecting without all the extra stuff weighing it down." (more)
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| FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD |
"Too Much Dumb, Not Enough Dumbledore"
Peter Sobczynski says... "There is hardly a moment to be had in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald that is not suffused with some kind of magic. For the second installment of a five-film series set in the magical world created by J.K. Rowling and taking place decades before Harry Potter arrived on the scene, the filmmakers have pulled out all the stops and filled the screen with a countless array of visual treats that are so elaborately designed and executed that to even speculate about doing them as recently as a few years ago would have been dismissed as simply impossible. The problem with the film is that while magic, at least that of the technical variety, is in abundance, what is is perilously short supply is a recognizable sense of wonder and enchantment. Without those elements—the very things necessary to help viewers fully engage with a story of this type—the resulting film is little more than a surprisingly dour mess in which characters we care little about doing things that we can barely understand while fighting to be noticed amid the constant swarm of flashy but not especially memorable visual effects." (more)
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| THUGS OF HINDOSTAN |
"A Bollywood swashbuckler, without a doubt."
Jay Seaver says... "It's about ten minutes into "Thugs of Hindostan" before someone is swinging on a rope for the first time, and let me level with you: People swinging through the air on a rope to escape danger or enter a fray is a large part of what I want from a swashbuckling adventure, along with swordfights, cannons, and sneering villains. This movie has all that along with a few musical numbers and actual mustache twirling, and while it sometimes strains under the pressure of including all of that, it's still a pretty good time." (more)
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| INTIMATE STRANGERS (2018) |
"An entirely different game of telephone."
Jay Seaver says... ""Intimate Strangers" is in its second week atop the South Korean box office and I readily admit that it's hard to imagine a remake doing the same here (or a threemake, considering this is an adaptation of the Italian "Perfect Strangers"); it's the sort of relationship-oriented movie for adults that has a hard time finding a place these days. It's a pretty good one, though, and I can't fault it for using kind of a cheap trick to keep people talking afterward. It works, after all." (more)
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| OUTLAW KING |
"Missing what it takes to be an epic for small or big screen."
Jay Seaver says... "A local theater has a 70mm/widescreen festival that includes a lot of epics of the sort that "Outlaw/King" is looking to be, and though Charlton Heston seems like ridiculous casting for 75% of the ones he's in, I wonder what a Robert the Bruce picture with him in the lead would have been like, or at least one made to dazzle on a huge Cinemascope screen rather than one shot knowing that it will get 99.9% if its audience on Netflix. Maybe it had the same problems, but maybe it stands a chance of overpowering them with sheer theatricality and spectacle." (more)
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| LAST LETTER (2018) |
"Grief and laughter mixed just right."
Jay Seaver says... "It is entirely possible that by this time next year, we'll be looking at this "Last Letter" as one half of a phenomenon fairly unique in film history, as director Shunji Iwai is already shooting a remake of this Mandarin-language movie in his native Japan - it usually goes in the other order, and seldom in such rapid succession. Those strange circumstances make this film an oddity, but nevertheless still in line with Iwai's previous films, an earnest and emotional work that's also quite sweet and funny." (more)
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| OVERLORD (2018) |
"Delivers a solid battle with Nazi monsters, and what more do you want?"
Jay Seaver says... "Even without the horror stuff plastered all over the advertising, I don't think you could take someone to see "Overlord" as a wartime action film and have them be caught flat-footed by things going into a decidedly less realistic direction. It gives the game away fairly early and doesn't build quite enough to feel like more than the basics before doing so, but the jump to mad scientists and monsters works pretty well." (more)
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'YOU GET ME IN A VENDETTA KIND OF MOOD, YOU TELL THE ANGELS IN HEAVEN YOU NEVER SEEN EVIL SO SINGULARLY PERSONIFIED AS YOU DID IN THE FACE OF THE MAN WHO KILLED YOU.'
- Vincenzo Coccotti, True Romance
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