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3/5
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The Killer
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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It's moody, stylish and pretty preposterous, but thoroughly watchable...
Posted Sep 12, 2023
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Coup de Chance
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Woody Allen's Coup de Chance is fun.
Posted Sep 12, 2023
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5/5
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Hit Man
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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It's a rom-com, a thriller and a black comedy, all marvellously rolled into one, with a delightful turn by Linklater's co-writer Glen Powell in the title role of a mild philosophy professor...
Posted Sep 12, 2023
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5/5
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Poor Things
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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It's a remarkable film, shot in Lanthimos's trademark wacky style, with an uproarious performance from Mark Ruffalo as the bounder who tries to exploit Bella's childlike naivety...
Posted Sep 12, 2023
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3/5
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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... An engaging drama about the lies we tell to those we love, to avoid hurting them or to boost their confidence.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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2/5
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Heart of Stone
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Tom Harper's film could only be more of a Mission Impossible rip-off if it were called Mission Unbelievable.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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1/5
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Red, White & Royal Blue
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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... The film, trying both to be a comedy and a proud LGBTQ statement, falls splat between two thrones.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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2/5
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Meg 2: The Trench
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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It's a relief, after almost two hours of this silliness, to come up for air.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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2/5
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Haunted Mansion
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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This remake, with a heavyweight, largely African-American cast, does a pretty decent job of blending supernatural horror with comedy and aiming it principally at children. But as popcorn entertainment it is hit-and-miss stuff... mostly miss.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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2/5
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Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Gran Turismo isn't nonsense, but it might have been more honest simply to call it Product Placement.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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Barbie
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Their thunderous feminist message is leavened by plenty of sharp gags and, following her acclaimed 2017 film Lady Bird and the wonderful Little Women (2019), Gerwig further burnishes her reputation as a director of terrific flair.
Posted Jul 24, 2023
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5/5
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Oppenheimer unfolds like a thriller, while not swerving profound questions about the morality of laying Hiroshima and Nagasaki to nuclear waste.
Posted Jul 24, 2023
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Sweet Charity
(1969)
|
Brian Viner
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It’s thoroughly dated, but that’s part of its enduring charm — as is Shirley MacLaine!
Posted Jul 14, 2023
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4/5
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Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
(2022)
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Brian Viner
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For anyone of a certain age, or anyone of any age into graphic design, it’s compelling stuff.
Posted Jul 14, 2023
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1/5
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The Out-Laws
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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A Netflix comedy so crass and witless that it almost deserves to be seen, if only in pursuit of an answer to the age-old question of how films as bad as this get made.
Posted Jul 07, 2023
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4/5
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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It is all tremendously enjoyable, a summer blockbuster worthy of the name.
Posted Jul 07, 2023
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3/5
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Elemental
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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But it is clever rather than charming, an animation to admire, not adore. It has all the right elements, in more ways than one. But unlike the greatest Pixar films, it never made my heart sing.
Posted Jul 07, 2023
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2/5
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Asteroid City
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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The occasional treats are insufficient recompense for being forced to wallow, for the best part of two hours, in Anderson’s unabated self-indulgence.
Posted Jun 26, 2023
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2/5
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No Hard Feelings
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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It’s a romantic comedy so feebly constructed, so lazily written, so devoid of wit and charm, that the ghost of Billy Wilder must be choking on his celestial cigar.
Posted Jun 26, 2023
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3/5
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Greatest Days
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Coky Giedroyc's film is thoroughly cheesy, as I say, but it has oodles of heart...
Posted Jun 15, 2023
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2/5
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The Flash
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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The Flash has its moments, but passes in the very opposite of a flash and, as so often with DC movies, the humour at times feels desperately forced, some of it unworthy of the most mediocre sitcom.
Posted Jun 15, 2023
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3/5
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Extraction 2
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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The film is really just one mighty melee of chasing, fighting and killing, inevitably featuring cars, boats, planes, trains and helicopters, and obeying all the other laws of the genre...
Posted Jun 15, 2023
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5/5
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The Zone of Interest
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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[A] brilliant, chilling picture...
Posted May 26, 2023
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4/5
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Anatomy of a Fall
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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A terrific thriller which ends up like the best episode of Crown Court you've ever seen
Posted May 26, 2023
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4/5
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May December
(2023)
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Brian Viner
|
It's very nicely done.
Posted May 26, 2023
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3/5
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Firebrand
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Tudor scholars will choke on their mead at some cheeky moments of historical revisionism, but it's bold stuff...
Posted May 26, 2023
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2/5
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Master Gardener
(2022)
|
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
|
The atmosphere is initially alluring yet, as the violence begins, this becomes not the film you'd naturally expect or desire — a stiff, stilted drama.
Posted May 26, 2023
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3/5
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My Name Is Happy
(2022)
|
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
|
... A tough, intimate, and painful watch.
Posted May 26, 2023
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4/5
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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
|
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
|
The new Little Mermaid is no classic but it's a dependable half- term treat... or rather feast, given that it runs for almost an hour longer than the original.
Posted May 26, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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... Despite its bladder-challenging duration, Killers Of The Flower Moon is still a triumph.
Posted May 26, 2023
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4/5
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Basically, the casting is pitch perfect in this intelligent adaptation that gently balances humour with heart.
Posted May 19, 2023
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2/5
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Fast X
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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... It’s more like a Vanity Fair party than a movie — yet only a splendid new villain (Jason Momoa) seems to be having any real fun. Luckily, he’s fabulous.
Posted May 19, 2023
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4/5
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The Other Fellow
(2022)
|
Brian Viner
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It may sound like a slight premise, but Australian filmmaker Matthew Bauer deftly swerves it in surprising, thoughtful and occasionally touching directions.
Posted May 19, 2023
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2/5
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Beau Is Afraid
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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But really the trick is on us, forced to endure Aster's self-indulgence in a film so long and loopy...
Posted May 19, 2023
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4/5
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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But this film is about much more than Parkinson's. It's also about the preciousness of a close family and the peculiarity of becoming a movie star.
Posted May 12, 2023
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Book Club: The Next Chapter
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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In every conversation between the four women, each of them chips in with a quip or a platitude, almost as if their agents are standing by with a stopwatch to make sure their client gets the same number of lines as the others.
Posted May 12, 2023
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2/5
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The Laureate
(2021)
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Brian Viner
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The Laureate tells this story, which sounds anything but dreary, and yet in writer-director William Nunez’s over-earnest drama somehow manages to be just that.
Posted May 08, 2023
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2/5
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Peter Pan & Wendy
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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At times, watching this film is like sitting in on a therapy session as a deeply disturbed pirate confronts his repressed memories. All of which will fly over the heads of its intended young audience as surely as Peter does over the rooftops...
Posted May 08, 2023
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4/5
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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Gunn goes the whole hog with the animals in this film, from cute talking dogs to mutant pigs and even heart-rending scenes in a jail cell featuring a raccoon, a walrus and an otter.
Posted May 08, 2023
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4/5
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Little Richard: I Am Everything
(2023)
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Brian Viner
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... Explores the rock ’n’ roll icon’s sexuality and his remarkable, enduring influence.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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2/5
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Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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If you do know something of his story [George Foreman] then you’ll see it for what it is: disappointingly humdrum and shallow.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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3/5
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Polite Society
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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Manzoor attempts, with only sporadic success, to mix slapstick violence and Muslim-family comedy with an outlandish genetics sub-plot that might have been lifted from a 1950s B-movie.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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4/5
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Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, The
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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It’s a very well-crafted adaptation of a story that on the page struck me as mildly mawkish, but on screen is propelled so expertly by Broadbent and the marvellous Penelope Wilton that the mawkishness rarely surfaces.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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4/5
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Missing
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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Writer-directors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson push a little at the boundaries of credibility, but it’s ingeniously done.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
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3/5
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Ghosted
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
|
By the time it starts getting really silly —about 25 minutes in — you might feel invested enough... to keep watching. I did.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
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4/5
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The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
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It feels pleasingly old-fashioned; a film, subtitles or not, in the escapist tradition of The Adventures Of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe just when we need it most.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
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4/5
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One Fine Morning
(2022)
|
Brian Viner
|
One Fine Morning is a thoughtful French language drama... [Full review in Spanish]
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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2/5
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Loving Highsmith
(2022)
|
Brian Viner
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It is too much in love with its subject to give us a full understanding of what made her tick.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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1/5
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Assassin Club
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
|
... Desperately corny and derivative.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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3/5
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Renfield
(2023)
|
Brian Viner
|
[Cage's Dracula] is an extravagantly full-blooded performance in every sense, a camply sinister hoot, and on its own worth the price of admission.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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