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The Gift
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Edgerton is unsettling you every moment that he's on and off screen.
Posted Sep 13, 2015
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Macbeth
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Macbeth is a cinematic psychedelic; hypnotic, jarring and reaches through your eyes to clutch your brain stem and rattle it around.
Posted Sep 13, 2015
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Trainwreck
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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The pacing of Trainwreck does seem to lag, but that's mostly because Schumer is just so efficient at destroying you in concentrated doses...
Posted Sep 13, 2015
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3.5/5
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Justice League: Gods and Monsters
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Justice League: Gods and Monsters feels like a bright alternate universe and something that's not just a fleeting plot device.
Posted Aug 24, 2015
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3.5/5
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Lost River
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Lost River is absolutely not going to be for everybody but that's precisely why it's worth your time. Gosling's first outing is hopefully not going to be his last.
Posted Aug 24, 2015
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3/5
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The Little Death
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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The Little Death is a cautionary tale to selfishness and sexual conservatism; told with a desire to be cringe-worthy. It's clever, but it knows it.
Posted Aug 05, 2015
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4.5/5
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Dirty Wars
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Dirty Wars is frightening and it's not over.
Posted Aug 05, 2015
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1/5
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Beyond the Reach
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Beyond the Reach is a messy patchwork of potential, but the conclusion takes such a leap into the totally batshit that you're kind of left asking; 'what the hell did I just watch?!?'
Posted Aug 05, 2015
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2/5
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Blackhat
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Blackhat feels like the vehicle that Mann wanted to explore the hacking world but the casting and the script's counterintuitive motivations it mutated away from his intent. It's a shame.
Posted Aug 04, 2015
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4/5
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Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is exceptionally made, insane fun and the best this series has to offer and then some.
Posted Aug 04, 2015
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4/5
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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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M&E&TDG is about being in the midst of a situation that could define you, and everyone except you realising it.
Posted Jul 22, 2015
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5/5
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The Babadook
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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The Babadook descends to the truly horrific when you begin to see it as the literary manifestation of insomniac's murder fantasy.
Posted Jul 21, 2015
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2/5
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Terminator Genisys
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Terminator Genisys is fine.
Posted Jul 15, 2015
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2.5/5
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Ant-Man
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Ant-Man isn't so much watching, as living through Weekend At Bernie's. Peyton Reed and co. come and parade the soulless and lifeless corpse of an Edgar Wright film.
Posted Jul 15, 2015
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1/5
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Entourage
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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I believe Confucius once said: a change in aspect ratio does not a movie make.
Posted Jun 19, 2015
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5/5
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Victoria
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Victoria pulses with life, it excites with unexpected romance, it thrills when our characters are dragged into a maelstrom; it is artistry, executed to perfection.
Posted Jun 14, 2015
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3/5
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Mr. Holmes
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Mr Holmes should have been incredible but instead it was just ordinary. And I'm not sure how hard you realise it was NOT to use an 'elementary' pun.
Posted Jun 11, 2015
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4.5/5
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The Russian Woodpecker
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Documentary cinema rarely feels this immediate and relevant. The Russian Woodpecker sounds a lot like a canary whistling from the coal mine to me.
Posted Jun 11, 2015
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3.5/5
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99 Homes
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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99 Homes brings an unbearable subject, excruciatingly close; Bahrani makes you feel powerless to the machinations of the greedy, perhaps that's the point.
Posted Jun 08, 2015
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3.5/5
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Amy
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Amy will do two things. Firstly, it will make you feel worse that such an incredible talent, with unparalleled soul could not get it together. Secondly, with the toxicity of her environment it's a miracle that she lived as long as she did.
Posted Jun 08, 2015
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3.5/5
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The Drop
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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The Drop is an enigma.
Posted Jun 07, 2015
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5/5
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Mad Max: Fury Road
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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I defy you to see a better film this year.
Posted Jun 01, 2015
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3.5/5
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Dawg Fight
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Behind the self-aggrandising, gangster rap style and human meat tenderising is Dawg Fight's quandary: controlled violence seems to make this community better.
Posted May 25, 2015
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4/5
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Whiplash
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Whiplash finds the perfect amount of discomfort between emotional abuse and artistic glory.
Posted May 15, 2015
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4/5
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Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is yet another entry into Alex Gibney's incredible resume of consistently objective and powerful documentary films.
Posted May 14, 2015
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4.5/5
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Tombstone
(1993)
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Blake Howard
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The 'right hand' men are the reason we all keep going back to Tombstone.
Posted Apr 25, 2015
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4/5
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Top Five
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Top Five is Chris Rock's latest slice of personal comedy, except New York is the stage and echoes of Woody Allen, Louie C.K, Adam Sandler and Jerry Seinfeld abound.
Posted Apr 25, 2015
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4.5/5
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Avengers: Age of Ultron
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Whedon weaves theses titanic characters and egos together to bind the bloated universe into a Long Island Iced Tea; the more you savour, the more you come to appreciate all the powerful and seemingly conflicting elements and motivations working together.
Posted Apr 22, 2015
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5/5
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Tyson
(2008)
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Blake Howard
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The greatest bout of Tyson's life was no singular opponent but him being an experimental pawn in the battle of nature versus nurture.
Posted Apr 07, 2015
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3/5
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Stretch
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Stretch feels like the dots joined from what was left on Carnaghan's drawing board.
Posted Mar 27, 2015
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2.5/5
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Get Hard
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Get Hard is like a flaccid dick standing with the assistance of two splints; Ferrell and Hart.
Posted Mar 27, 2015
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4/5
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Blackfish
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Really great documentaries are like zeitgeist napalm; and Blackfish carries the torch.
Posted Mar 27, 2015
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3.5/5
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Focus
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Focus is fun, slick, engaging and sexy. Also Margot Robbie.
Posted Mar 03, 2015
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4/5
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Ain't Them Bodies Saints
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Lowery's beautiful Ain't Them Bodies Saints is about sometimes letting go of who you are for a second chance to be who you to want to be.
Posted Feb 28, 2015
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0.5/5
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Fifty Shades of Grey
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Who would have thought, a Twilight ripoff actually being inferior to its already inferior inspiration.
Posted Feb 27, 2015
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2.5/5
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The Interview
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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The Interview is all bromance and no bite, all dick jokes and no penetrating satire. Sorry Seth and Evan; Trey and Matt did it.
Posted Feb 27, 2015
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4/5
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Kingsman: The Secret Service
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Imagine a Roger Moore James Bond with the potty mouth of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and the action from The Raid.
Posted Feb 27, 2015
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5/5
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Inherent Vice
(2014)
|
Blake Howard
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PTA, Pynchon, Phoenix and co. produce something unavoidably brilliant.
Posted Feb 27, 2015
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4.5/5
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The Judge
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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The Judge picked me apart in ways that I wasn't prepared for.
Posted Feb 26, 2015
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1/5
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Jupiter Ascending
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Jupiter Ascending leaves so numb that you'll have pins and needles.
Posted Feb 25, 2015
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4/5
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A Most Violent Year
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Chandor conceives of a devilishly indeterminate tale that in one way goes to affirm that stereotype while challenging the audience with the inherent greed that invariably rears its head as you peel away the layers.
Posted Feb 04, 2015
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4/5
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The Gambler
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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The Gambler is about the lure to triumph over potential disaster and finding a way to "treat those two imposters the same."
Posted Feb 03, 2015
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1/5
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Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
(2015)
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Blake Howard
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Fish out of water.
Posted Feb 01, 2015
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5/5
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Selma
(2014)
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Blake Howard
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Selma is an almost impassable minefield of opportunities to make a bad film. Director Ava DuVernay danced through like Fred Astair.
Posted Feb 01, 2015
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4.5/5
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Ida
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Ida begins as a search for closure and becomes an incredibly engrossing and devastating examination of the pedestrian nature of evil in wartime.
Posted Jan 18, 2015
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5/5
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Chopper
(2000)
|
Blake Howard
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It's an all too frequent occurrence to see the phrase 'instant classic' bandied about; Chopper was appropriately adorned with that title.
Posted Jan 18, 2015
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3.5/5
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The Thomas Crown Affair
(1999)
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Blake Howard
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The Thomas Crown Affair is the perfect defence for why films could and should be remade for new generations.
Posted Jan 18, 2015
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4.5/5
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Starred Up
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Starred Up is unflinchingly ferocious and you won't be able to look away.
Posted Jan 18, 2015
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4/5
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Blue Ruin
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Exponentially inspirational; Blue Ruin is a film that feels like intimate atomic fallout out from an event that radiates through the lives of two families. Filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier is irrevocably one to watch.
Posted Jan 15, 2015
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3/5
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Begin Again
(2013)
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Blake Howard
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Begin Again is a delight, not only because of its infectious musical vitality but because it follows the unexpected forks in the road.
Posted Jan 14, 2015
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