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Film Reviews
Film Review – Wish I Was Here
There is a sub-genre that has become a staple of any year: the indie comedy. The comedy movie that, while being funny, deals with some darker issues, has an abundance of quirky-but-realistic characters, and sometimes creates its own offbeat reality that we can fall into.…
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Film Review – Lucy
If there’s something to say about Luc Besson’s Lucy (2014), it’s that he definitely swung for the fences. The writer/director who made La Femme Nikita (1990), Leon: The Professional (1994), and The Fifth Element (1997) has returned with arguably his most ambitious work. Advertisements would…
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SIFF Film Review – Cannibal
Manuel Martín Cuenca’s new film, Cannibal – seen by me at the Seattle International Film Festival – is the story of Carlos (Antonio de la Torre), a tailor in the Spanish town of Granada. (While researching Granada, I ended up learning it was the capital…
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Film Review – The Pleasures of Being Out of Step
Interviews with and about jazz critic and civil rights activist, Nat Hentoff, offer some glimpses of his big moments in music and social justice issues in The Pleasures of Being Out of Step, but are lacking in making a compelling argument of why this is…
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Film Review – Ida
Visually striking, expressively acted, and directed with perfect precision, Ida is pure movie storytelling at its finest. Before seeing this film, I was told about its beautiful cinematography. They did not lie, but also didn’t prepare me for how engaging the shots would be. I cannot…
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Film Review – Among Ravens
Among Ravens is the type of micro-indie that normally goes unseen and unheard of and thus impacts nothing either positively or negatively. It’s a from-the-heart labor of love full of actors acting and a camera crew capturing the natural beauty of its surroundings, soaking up…
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Film Review – The Purge: Anarchy
I re-watched last year’s The Purge on HBO recently and was immediately reminded of what drove me so crazy about it the first time around. Outside of the fact that it ultimately boiled down to a run-of-the-mill home invasion flick, therefore mostly excusing its admittedly…
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Film Review – Witching & Bitching
I’m a big fan of the horror comedy. I like the gore and I like the funny, so combining the two sounds like gold to me. The best is when the humor is used to comment on the horror genre, Scream and Tucker & Dale…
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