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3/4
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Dream Scenario
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Dream Scenario is at its most poignant in the pathos of Nicolas Cage’s performance. His Paul is both somewhat sympathetic ... and, frankly, deeply unlikable.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/4
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The Marvels
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Content to be hashtag content.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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3/4
|
The Killer
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
'The Killer' might be described as anti-philosophical, at least in the sense that The Killer is constantly undercutting his own self-important mental blather.
Posted Nov 03, 2023
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1/4
|
Five Nights at Freddy's
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The pacing is bad, the plotting is both convoluted and also somehow weirdly shallow, the writing is laughable, and the action is simplistic. I would not recommend seeing Five Nights at Freddy’s, as it is not good.
Posted Nov 03, 2023
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3/4
|
Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
A slow-boil idiot crime epic.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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2/4
|
The Exorcist: Believer
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
My big question is why you’d make a bad movie that so aggressively ditches the foundational tenets of the original picture.
Posted Oct 06, 2023
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2.5/4
|
The Creator
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Edwards has crafted a world that looks lived-in and believable; in this age of comic-book bloat and shoddy special effects work, it’s genuinely startling to see something that is simultaneously this fantastic and realistic.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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2.5/4
|
Dumb Money
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Not a great movie, precisely. But an interesting one, at least in part because it posits that the GameStop episode and the whole we’re-not-gonna-take-it vibe were an almost direct reaction to the pandemic itself.
Posted Sep 22, 2023
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3/4
|
A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Neither blockbusters nor awards bait, Branagh’s Poirots call to mind a better time when Hollywood could churn out mid-budget adult fare that offered up a weekend evening’s distraction.
Posted Sep 15, 2023
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3/4
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No Hard Feelings
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
It’s a real shame that [Jennifer Lawrence] spent a decade playing noted sourpuss Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and its sequels, as she has better comic timing than just about anyone else from her age cohort.
Posted Sep 08, 2023
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2/4
|
Bottoms
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Forget punching up or punching down: Bottoms keeps its hands open, rarely landing a slap.
Posted Sep 08, 2023
|
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3/4
|
The Equalizer 3
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The Equalizer 3 asks of McCall whether he can ever really find peace. It asks us, the viewer, a slightly different question: Do we even really want him to?
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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2.5/4
|
Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Gran Turismo ticks all the boxes ... but nearly everything is about 10 percent better than it needs to be.
Posted Aug 25, 2023
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2.5/4
|
Strays
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Strays is silly and simple, but no less successful because of the silliness or the simplicity.
Posted Aug 18, 2023
|
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2/4
|
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Dracula himself ... is reduced to a run-of-the-mill boogeyman, little more than a leathery, silent monster who pops out of the shadows every once in a while when no one’s bled onscreen for ten minutes.
Posted Aug 11, 2023
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2.5/4
|
They Cloned Tyrone
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The lack of subtlety works in They Cloned Tyrone’s favor, just as it worked in the favor of They Live! or Pootie Tang or Sorry to Bother You.
Posted Aug 04, 2023
|
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3/4
|
Talk to Me
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
What separates Talk to Me from some other entries in this genre is just how unrelentingly cruel it is.
Posted Aug 04, 2023
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3/4
|
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The animation in Mutant Mayhem has a sort of designed raggedness to it. ... It’s polished and crude at the same time, giving the screen an almost tactile sensibility.
Posted Aug 04, 2023
|
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2/4
|
Barbie
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The story of Barbieland’s descent into a patriarchal nightmare ... fails at the most basic level of prompting laughs. This is a mild problem for a film that is ostensibly a comedy.
Posted Jul 28, 2023
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3.5/4
|
Oppenheimer
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
For a movie that’s three hours long, occasionally in black and white, and features almost nothing but dudes chatting about science stuff, Oppenheimer absolutely zips along.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
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3/4
|
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Late-stage Mission: Impossible movies are absolutely perfect pop art confections, and Dead Reckoning: Part One is no exception.
Posted Jul 14, 2023
|
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3/4
|
Past Lives
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The MVP here is John Magaro, who delivers a quietly devastating performance as Nora’s husband, Arthur.
Posted Jul 07, 2023
|
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2/4
|
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Raiders of the Lost IP.
Posted Jun 30, 2023
|
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2/4
|
Asteroid City
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Asteroid City gets lost within itself, Anderson wandering down hallways of meaning that offer no exit.
Posted Jun 23, 2023
|
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2.5/4
|
The Flash
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
I mostly enjoyed The Flash. But the most confusing aspect of all this is the continued brand maintenance, the ongoing effort to rescue certain parts of the so-called DCEU from obsolescence even as the rest of it comes to an end.
Posted Jun 16, 2023
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2/4
|
Master Gardener
(2022)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Edgerton and Weaver deliver performances that are clipped and mannered and manicured in a way that calls to mind the French formal gardens we learn of in voiceover.
Posted Jun 09, 2023
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3/4
|
You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Menzies’s Brutus moment in You Hurt My Feelings is on a smaller scale, of course, and of less historical import. But in a summer of cinematic excess, it’s nice to be occasionally treated to something a little more intimate.
Posted Jun 09, 2023
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3/4
|
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The best-looking half-a-movie you’ll see all year!
Posted Jun 02, 2023
|
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2/4
|
The Little Mermaid
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The whole endeavor is also just a reminder that no movie should attempt underwater scenes in the wake of Avatar: The Way of Water. It all looks flat and washed out.
Posted May 26, 2023
|
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3.5/4
|
BlackBerry
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Glenn Howerton has a perfect way of twitching his eyes and tensing his mouth and cocking his head to convey both intense frustration and unearned confidence. It’s Oscar-worthy work.
Posted May 19, 2023
|
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3/4
|
Air
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
As in the Ridley Scott-helmed The Last Duel, Affleck is perfectly cast as a variety of lordly, out-of-touch aristocrat who is vaguely annoyed with an impetuous underling played by Matt Damon.
Posted May 12, 2023
|
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3/4
|
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
It’s entirely possible that Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is the last gasp of [the MCU's] once-invulnerable cultural wrecking ball.
Posted May 05, 2023
|
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3.5/4
|
Guy Ritchie's The Covenant
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
A deadly serious—and almost deadly earnest, in its portrait of duty, honor, and sacrifice—look at America’s failure to live up to its word to the interpreters on the ground in Afghanistan.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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3/4
|
Evil Dead Rise
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Gleefully sadistic.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
|
|
3/4
|
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
There’s nothing quite as fun as seeing a well-executed action-comedy with an audience, one that both inspires peals of laughter and those tense moments where you grab the chair in anticipation. ... Honor Among Thieves nails that sensibility.
Posted Apr 03, 2023
|
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3/4
|
Tetris
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Triumph of the neoliberal will.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
|
|
3/4
|
John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
John Wick: Chapter 4 feels like a film where [Director Chad Stahelski] understood that he finally had the freedom and the budget to do, literally, anything he wanted on the screen—and might never again—so by God, he was going to do it.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
|
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2/4
|
65
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The problem here isn’t that 65 is terrible—ironically, it would be easier to dismiss something incompetent, a movie focused on an actor less inherently interesting than Adam Driver—just that it’s kind of boring.
Posted Mar 10, 2023
|
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3/4
|
Creed III
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The reigning champion nepo-franchise.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
|
|
2.5/4
|
Cocaine Bear
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
This is a hard-R country bear jamboree.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
|
|
2/4
|
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The problem isn’t so much that the quantum realm looks unreal; it’s more that it looks unrealized, unfinished. Digital doodles.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
|
|
2.5/4
|
Knock at the Cabin
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Knock at the Cabin once again demonstrates Shyamalan is one of our most talented visual storytellers and this is a tense, thrilling film.
Posted Feb 10, 2023
|
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2/4
|
Women Talking
(2022)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Subtlety isn’t really on the menu here.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
|
|
3/4
|
All Quiet on the Western Front
(2022)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
The first 13 minutes of the film lay out an absolutely wonderful little horror story.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
|
|
2.5/4
|
Triangle of Sadness
(2022)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Might have been the picture of the year if it had ended nearly 80 minutes in.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
|
|
3/4
|
Infinity Pool
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Infinity Pool ... succeeds almost entirely because of the manic energy that Mia Goth pours into the role.
Posted Jan 27, 2023
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|
3/4
|
Plane
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Plane is the Ambulance of 2023.
Posted Jan 20, 2023
|
|
3/4
|
Missing
(2023)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
We live a mediated life, and Missing and its brethren highlight the natural artificiality of everything we do.
Posted Jan 20, 2023
|
|
3/4
|
A Man Called Otto
(2022)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Tom Hanks is our most reliable everyman star, the sort of guy who can do both gruff, put-upon loner and gruff, helpful neighbor with equal skill. It’s funny when he attacks a hospital clown because he’s actualizing so many of our secret urges.
Posted Jan 13, 2023
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3/4
|
Babylon
(2022)
|
Sonny Bunch
|
Chazelle is so flagrantly trying to have his cake and eat it too that it’s almost hard to get upset or annoyed at him or his film; I feel the need to grant him points for pure audacity.
Posted Jan 06, 2023
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