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4/5
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Lewis Capaldi: How I'm Feeling Now
(2023)
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Neil McCormick
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After getting up close and (very) personal with this charming, articulate and talented young man in How I’m Feeling Now, I defy any viewer not to end up rooting for Capaldi to overcome his demons and knock out yet another sentimental power ballad...
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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1/5
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Murder Mystery 2
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Perhaps the lamest element of all is the actual detective work, for which blame falls on a screenplay that cheats itself silly, devising nonsensical ways to bring characters back from the dead, then taunting us with their bogus ingenuity.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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4/5
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves takes the deeply unfashionable route of telling a self-contained, fully satisfying story which allows its charming, well-chosen cast to play to their natural strengths.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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3/5
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Tetris
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Tetris is best when it’s geeking out right in front of us... There’s no nostalgia quite as addictive, this proves, as the 8-bit kind.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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Army of Darkness
(1992)
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Hugo Davenport
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At first the wisecracks and effects are rather fun. By the time the dead mount a full-scale assault on a castle, however, the stop-motion technique is irresistibly reminiscent of the bygone age of Ray Harryhausen.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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4/5
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Mae Martin: SAP
(2023)
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Tristram Fane Saunders
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Sometimes, Martin’s self-effacing looseness muffles the impact of promising material; more often, though, it has the unaffected pleasure of hearing a friend share a good story they’ve heard.
Posted Mar 29, 2023
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The Boy Who Could Fly
(1986)
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Victoria Mather
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What is likable about this film is that it extols children being kind to each other.
Posted Mar 28, 2023
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The Secret of My Success
(1987)
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Victoria Mather
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This is a yuppie farrago about corporate raids and corpulent businessmen in which Fox plays the puppy.
Posted Mar 28, 2023
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Radio Days
(1987)
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Victoria Mather
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Radio Days is ephemeral; it is also pure, simple pleasure. What could be more deliciously intelligent?
Posted Mar 28, 2023
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Evil Dead 2
(1987)
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Victoria Mather
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Evil Dead 2 is too ludicrous to be subversive.
Posted Mar 28, 2023
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2/5
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A Good Person
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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[Zach Braff] achieves something accomplished by no other filmmaker to date: he extracts a bad performance from Florence Pugh.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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3/5
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Air
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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Alex Convery’s script frames the story half as a Moneyball-like cracking of the sports world’s cosmic code, half as a Jerry Maguire-style triumph against the corporate odds.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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4/5
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Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman
(2023)
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Ed Power
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But where the film shines is in exploring the friendship between Bono and the Edge.
Posted Mar 21, 2023
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4/5
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John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Even at practically Kubrickian length, though, the lockstep slaughter barely gives you pause for breath. It’s a barrage, and a blast.
Posted Mar 21, 2023
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Enter the Dragon
(1973)
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Patrick Gibbs
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Really, there's no call to mention anyone, director, writer or actor, beyond Mr. Lee, who, it should be said, was no mean actor as well as acrobat... The genre dies with him. I suppose.
Posted Mar 20, 2023
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2/5
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80 for Brady
(2023)
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Ed Power
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It could have been one more late-career hurrah by Fonda and her fellow screen greats. Instead, 80 For Brady flubs the touchdown.
Posted Mar 17, 2023
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2/5
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Boston Strangler
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Knightley, Chris Cooper and Carrie Coon can’t fix a plodding, unfocused script.
Posted Mar 17, 2023
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2/5
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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In terms of representation, you couldn’t ask for more. And that’s just as well, because in terms of entertainment, you could barely get less.
Posted Mar 15, 2023
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Always
(1985)
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Victoria Mather
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The result is shamelessly self-indulgent, specializing in the nauseous habit of picking psychological scabs which is peculiar to Americans. Excoriating for them and excruciating for us.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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Working Girls
(1986)
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Victoria Mather
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It is a shred, funny film which Borden handles with wit and imagination.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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The Fourth Protocol
(1987)
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Victoria Mather
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The Fourth Protocol is a good, old-fashioned thriller. Which is what is wrong with it. Movies have come in from the cold war now, yet "Protocol" in essence lukewarms up the format.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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Come and See
(1985)
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Victoria Mather
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A compelling, harrowing, absurdly beautiful account of the little known holocaust in Byelorussia.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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Come and See
(1985)
|
Philip Horne
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It's apocalypse caught in the act, a spellbinding, dangerous "excursion into hell."
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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Boys on the Side
(1995)
|
Hugo Davenport
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The picture is a bit of a shambles in narrative terms, but not without beguiling moments.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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4/5
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Money Shot: The Pornhub Story
(2023)
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Benji Wilson
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It was the least exciting but the most important truth to come out of Money Shot: until there’s legislation and the threat of sentencing for executives, no one gives a toss.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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4/5
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Polite Society
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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... The film gets right to the emotional heart of a youngster’s quotidian struggles by blasting them through the wildest genre kaleidoscope to hand. In Polite Society's case, that’s martial arts.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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The Mighty Celt
(2005)
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Tim Robey
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First-time director Pearse Elliott manfully reins in the blarney, and there is something doggedly heartfelt about the movie's commitment to unextroardinary lives.
Posted Mar 13, 2023
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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
(2005)
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Tim Robey
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My inner 14-year-old girl came out snuffling and elated.
Posted Mar 13, 2023
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2/5
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65
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, shot this mid-budget action-thriller mid-Covid, cleaving to that kind of B-movie template, and aiming, but failing, to match those emotional stakes.
Posted Mar 11, 2023
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2/5
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Luther: The Fallen Sun
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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Cross's plot doesn't so much thicken as coagulate into nonsense.
Posted Mar 11, 2023
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The Dark Angel
(1935)
|
George Campbell Dixon
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The treatment is so careful, the direction so skillful, and the acting of Merle Oberon, Fredric March, and Herbert Marshall so sincere, that the story never fails to hold.
Posted Mar 10, 2023
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5/5
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Rye Lane
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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Rye Lane marks the torch not just being passed, but eagerly seized.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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1/5
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Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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The film is so amateurishly made that it is often hard to see and hear what’s going on – not a complaint per se – and doesn’t even have much of a plot...
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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3/5
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Scream VI
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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The showdown (in the usual abandoned auditorium) is perhaps the campiest yet to be unveiled, proving that a generally-clapped-out franchise is capable of some fairly fun death throes.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
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3/5
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Chris Rock: Selective Outrage
(2023)
|
Ed Power
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Rock remains a live-wire at 58. Yet many of the jokes have a reheated, straight-from-the-microwave quality.
Posted Mar 05, 2023
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9 to 5
(1980)
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Patrick Gibbs
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The piece turns away from reality, where surely a lively satirical comedy was to be found.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
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3/5
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Finding Michael
(2023)
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Jasper Rees
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It's deeply uncomfortable to watch highly skilled Nepalis sift through clumps of frosted flesh strewn about the slopes, looking for the body that belongs to the family with the wealth... that entitles them to pay for extraction and burial.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
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4/5
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Creed III
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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Still, even with the steady supply of clichés and occasional leaps of logic, the dramatic scenes smoulder away nicely.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Sayonara
(1957)
|
George Campbell Dixon
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While claims to "epic" quality are inflated, it really is, in its romantic glossy way, a highly expert job.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Celine and Julie Go Boating
(1974)
|
Eric Shorter
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An elaborately cumbersome and self-indulgent exercise in highbrow fooling.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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3/5
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A Whole Lifetime with Jamie Demetriou
(2023)
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Chris Bennion
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An enjoyable snack for Demetriou fans but one that leaves you with the feeling of “yes, and what now?”...
Posted Mar 01, 2023
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3/5
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Golda
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Cinematically, Golda doesn’t altogether avoid a TV-movie stodginess – it looks a bit drab, with some duff effects and uneven staging. But it has a businesslike running time, and doesn’t waste it.
Posted Mar 01, 2023
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Thelma & Louise
(1991)
|
Hugo Davenport
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Rarely does a commercial success contrive to fire on all cylinders as a piece of pure entertainment, and yet to hit a serious theme squarely on the ignition button.
Posted Feb 28, 2023
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Flower Drum Song
(1961)
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Patrick Gibbs
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Finds the usually reliable Rodgers and Hammerstein uninspired.
Posted Feb 27, 2023
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2/5
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Luther: The Fallen Sun
(2023)
|
Tim Robey
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As things go on, Cross’s plot doesn’t so much thicken as coagulate into nonsense.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
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3/5
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We Have a Ghost
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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As in Landon's terrific body-swap horror comedy Freaky, there's often a surprisingly thoughtful undercurrent to these zany riffs, and the tone is nicely judged for younger teens.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
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1/5
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Cocaine Bear
(2023)
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Robbie Collin
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Doesn’t so much insult its viewers’ intelligence as actively libel it.
Posted Feb 23, 2023
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1/5
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What's Love Got to Do with It?
(2022)
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Robbie Collin
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When critics lament the death of romantic comedy but meet every attempt to revive it with cries of “no, not like this,” it can come over as petty and churlish. Still, though: for the love of God, not like this.
Posted Feb 23, 2023
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3/5
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Infinity Pool
(2023)
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Tim Robey
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Infinity Pool certainly mounts its statement on soul death, but there’s a certain bleached misery to it that keeps the brakes on.
Posted Feb 23, 2023
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4/5
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Reality
(2023)
|
Tim Robey
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Reality transcends staginess as a strikingly well-realised piece of filmmaking, using judicious sound design and expressive lighting to gain a surreally vivid edge.
Posted Feb 22, 2023
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