2.5/4
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Unidentified Objects
(2022)
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Mark Dujsik
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Unidentified Objects clearly succeeds in giving us one part of a two-part character study, which isn't quite enough.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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2/4
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Shooting Stars
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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This isn't exactly and fully a LeBron James origin story, even if Shooting Stars does eventually become just that. It's a stronger movie until that point...
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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1.5/4
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Padre Pio
(2022)
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Mark Dujsik
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It's called Padre Pio, but the ... priest ... seems of little consequence to the narrative of co-writer/director Abel Ferrara's movie.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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2/4
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Follow Her
(2022)
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Mark Dujsik
|
Follow Her never figures out what to do with its self-referential premise.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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3/4
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Anonymous Sister
(2021)
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Mark Dujsik
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Boyle ensures that we have some sense of the long, fatal scope of this human-made and greed-maintained epidemic.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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2/4
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The Boogeyman
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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[I]ts generic setup and monster start to overwhelm what starts as a fairly chilling series of suspense and scare sequences.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
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3.5/4
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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Everything that worked in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse continues and is expanded in this dynamic, imaginative sequel.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
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0.5/4
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The Machine
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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It's a meandering mess of a movie and one that never gives us even a vague idea of the tenor or quality of Kreischer as a comedian.
Posted May 26, 2023
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2.5/4
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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
|
Marshall's movie ... does enough well that it's almost tempting to forgive the project of its more apparent flaws.
Posted May 26, 2023
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3/4
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Influencer
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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Beyond the plotting and scheming, Harder also plays a neat game with sympathy in this story.
Posted May 26, 2023
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3/4
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Close to Vermeer
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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Close to Vermeer [is] a thoughtful insider's look at the necessary passion and diplomacy of examining art.
Posted May 26, 2023
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3/4
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
|
[T]his film is much funnier than its simple setup probably has any right to be, and that's mostly because Holofcener has tapped into something so recognizably human.
Posted May 25, 2023
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2/4
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The Wrath of Becky
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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[T]his entry feels like a stepping stone for what's to come...
Posted May 25, 2023
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2/4
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Kandahar
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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It's ultimately superficial...
Posted May 25, 2023
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2/4
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About My Father
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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Despite setting up so much in his favor, Maniscalco still seems out of place in this, ostensibly his, movie.
Posted May 25, 2023
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1/4
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Robots
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
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[T]he movie is mostly defined by its lack of insight, foresight, and any ability to see how poorly imagined and executed the attempted humor here is.
Posted May 19, 2023
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1.5/4
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White Men Can't Jump
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
|
If there's a reason these filmmakers felt creatively driven to remake ... [the] 1992 film, the new version of White Men Can't Jump never reveals it.
Posted May 19, 2023
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2.5/4
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The Thief Collector
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[M]uch of Allison Otto's documentary ... amounts to a lot of speculation.
Posted May 19, 2023
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1/4
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Outpost
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
It's difficult to imagine a less thoughtful and empathetic way to tell the underlying story of Outpost.
Posted May 19, 2023
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3/4
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Moon Garden
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
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It's a creative, unsettling, and heartfelt film, made with obvious passion and an admirable sense of do-it-yourself craft.
Posted May 19, 2023
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2.5/4
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L'immensitÃ
(2022)
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Mark Dujsik
|
L'Immensità keeps its characters at just enough distance that the movie never quite says as much as it believes it does.
Posted May 19, 2023
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3/4
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Sanctuary
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
With energetic insight and humor, Sanctuary scrapes and scrapes at these characters and the power dynamics between them.
Posted May 18, 2023
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2/4
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Master Gardener
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
Master Gardener is mostly wrongheaded in placing the weight of redemption on the wrong character's shoulders.
Posted May 18, 2023
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3/4
|
Fast X
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
It's quite a bit of over-the-top fun...
Posted May 18, 2023
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2/4
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The Mother
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
There's probably a better version of The Mother somewhere between the lines of the movie we actually get.
Posted May 12, 2023
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1.5/4
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Knights of the Zodiac
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
What's missing, essentially, is some kind of personality to take the edge off just how routine and formulaic this tale is...
Posted May 12, 2023
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2.5/4
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Crater
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
|
It's simply too bad the movie's story bypasses most of the elements that make this world so intriguing and believable.
Posted May 12, 2023
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3/4
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Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
This is ... a piece of on-the-ground investigative journalism ... and it's an effectively infuriating one, too.
Posted May 12, 2023
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3/4
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
|
It's a respectful film about a man wholly worthy of that respect.
Posted May 12, 2023
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2/4
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Monica
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
As drama and as a study of fractured relationships mending, the movie is ultimately hollow, because it doesn't want to say too much aloud.
Posted May 12, 2023
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1.5/4
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Fool's Paradise
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[T]he plot and the gags become a clutter of half-baked ideas...
Posted May 12, 2023
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2/4
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The Starling Girl
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[I]t takes so long for Parmet to present the character in a way that isn't defined by her circumstances that the movie ends just as the moment arrives.
Posted May 11, 2023
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2/4
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Rally Road Racers
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[T]he filmmakers seem to rest on the comfort of the familiar, instead of looking for the silly and stylish elements that could set their material apart...
Posted May 11, 2023
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2/4
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It Ain't Over
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
The movie is too busy being defensive against real, perceived, or wholly imagined slights against its subject to give us an actual portrait of him.
Posted May 11, 2023
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1.5/4
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Hypnotic
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[T]he movie's simple, slightly clever premise gradually and finally collapses.
Posted May 11, 2023
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2/4
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Book Club: The Next Chapter
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
There's a pleasant simplicity to ... [the premise], even if returning screenwriters Bill Holderman ... and Erin Simms don't entirely trust it.
Posted May 11, 2023
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3.5/4
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BlackBerry
(2023)
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Mark Dujsik
|
[C]o-writer/director Matt Johnson's dramatization ... sees the ever-shifting market as a stage for a very human comedy.
Posted May 11, 2023
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0.5/4
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Love Again
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
This is a shockingly oblivious and embarrassing movie.
Posted May 05, 2023
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1.5/4
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What's Love Got to Do with It?
(2022)
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Mark Dujsik
|
Of all the ways to approach this story about modern-day arranged marriages, What's Love Got to Do with It? chooses the wrong ones.
Posted May 05, 2023
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3/4
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Plan 75
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
Hayakawa presents this tale in the form of a subdued slice of life, which makes it both believable and filled with a particularly restrained tenor of despair.
Posted May 05, 2023
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0/4
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Johnny & Clyde
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
The most offensive thing about co-writer/director Tom DeNucci's movie ... is its abject incompetence as an attempted piece of storytelling.
Posted May 05, 2023
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3/4
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Chile '76
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
A woman receives a crash course in the terrors of authoritarianism, the dangers of opposing it, and the all-too-easy guilt of complacency in Chile '76.
Posted May 05, 2023
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3/4
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
Leave it to the weirdos to bypass what's becoming the same, old same-old in this franchise.
Posted May 04, 2023
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2/4
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Peter Pan & Wendy
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
The changes within Peter Pan and Wendy ... remain either superficial ... or ... entirely beneath the surface of a too-familiar narrative.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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1.5/4
|
Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
This is a movie that doesn't quite know what it wants to do, except to give us the basics of a story that probably deserves more.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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3/4
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R.M.N.
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[T]he story is compelling and haunting in its details about this tight-knit community...
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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1/4
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Clock
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
Clock only makes sense in the context of it forcing its main point, regardless of how nonsensical everything else becomes.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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2/4
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Sisu
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
[T]he movie falls into a routine with only a few flashes of much inspiration in terms of the grisly or the excessive.
Posted Apr 27, 2023
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2.5/4
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Polite Society
(2023)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
Polite Society ... finally follows through more on the action than the characters with its last act...
Posted Apr 27, 2023
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2/4
|
The End of Sex
(2022)
|
Mark Dujsik
|
The movie's biggest problem, perhaps, is that it eventually forgets it's supposed to be a comedy.
Posted Apr 27, 2023
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