Posts Tagged ‘Guillermo del Toro’
Episode 98 – Nightmare Alley
For this week’s episode, we catch up with Guillermo del Torro‘s gothic noir, Nightmare Alley. We also discuss the top Oscar nomination categories/snubs, and we cover some recent movie news. For the streaming homework, we take a look back at Disney‘s 2002 animated flop, Treasure…
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Film Review – Nightmare Alley (2021)
What makes noir such a compelling film style is in its visual design and sense of desperation. Characters are lured into the dark world of crime, sex, and greed, where connivers and schemers come up with plans that always fall apart. They feel the noose…
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Film Review – The Witches (2020)
As a kid, the family movies that left a strong impression on me were the ones that toed the line between being safe and outright terrifying. They weren’t straight horror films, but they didn’t shy away from presenting darker themes for younger audiences. Return to…
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Film Review – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
For those of us that came of age in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the title Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark may be familiar. It was a trilogy of books that collected short horror tales written by Alvin Schwartz. But what made them memorable…
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Film Review – Pacific Rim: Uprising
What to say of Pacific Rim: Uprising, the big, dumb sequel to Guillermo del Toro‘s big, dumb robots vs. monsters spectacle of 2013? (I know the original has its defenders and I find his output, in general, worth a watch but ultimately discarded Rim as a feast…
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The MacGuffin’s Top 10 Films of 2017
One of the nicest things about writing for The MacGuffin is that all the film reviewers on this site have such varied tastes. Since we do not all live around the Los Angeles and New York City areas, the films that receive awards buzz may…
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Film Review – The Shape of Water
In their truest form, fairy tales, especially the ones that have lasted over time, have a dark undercurrent to them. They might be about something fanciful, but often there is something sinister lurking around the edges of the story in their original form. The Little…
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Film Review – The Handmaiden
My favorite Chan-wook Park film is Stoker partly because it is inspired by Shadow of a Doubt – my best-loved Alfred Hitchcock movie. He takes the two central characters and asks what would happen if they did in fact have similar natures. He’s not remaking…
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