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A few reviews

Vultural

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Noces - 2016 - 7/10
AKA - A Wedding

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Uncomfortable story of relocated Pakistani family living in France.
The 18 year old daughter ponders an abortion.  Waffles and procrastinates.
After she makes a decision, the family concludes she needs to marry.
Living in France, she is becoming too Western.
She is given three photos of Pakistani males and told to choose.
Again, she procrastinates, only this time the screws bear down.
You root for her because she has spirit and joie de vivre, but family pressure is agonizing.

Though opening credits state,  “Inspired by true events,”
much of the story seemed to evoke Madame Bovary.
 

ssj

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bionicbob said:
TURBO-KID!!!!  Welcome to the future.... 1996!!!


This was glorious!  It you are of a certain age and grew up watching 1980s futuristic schlock, then you will love this movie!  It brought back so many wonderful memories of browsing the VHS aisles and renting low budget sic-fi flicks... lol.   Great mindless fun!!!

Conan the Barbarian meets Mad Max meets Atari. 9/10.
 

Vultural

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American Pastoral - 2016 - 4/10

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Overwrought, over-acted, out of date yarn of girl who turns radical in the 60s, then goes underground.
Wait, no, the story is really about the father (Ewan McGregor) who spends his time (life) hunting for his daughter.
He is below amateur in this, by the way, committing mistakes, making terrible judgment errors.
Then again, there is the crumbling of his middle class, white bread marriage (to Jennifer Connelly).
Some of the scenes that might have been provocative in 1975 are laughable today.
Heavy handed downer of Roth’s  critique of the social veneer.
 

gazza

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The Babysitter 2017
When Cole stays up past his bedtime, he discovers that his hot babysitter is part of a satanic cult that will stop at nothing to keep their secret safe.

Imagine "home alone" where the traps actually kills mixed with "the strangers" I went into this straight to netflix movie not expecting much and i was actually surprised. One of the better comedy horror movies
 

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Oi gazza, you do realize that if you don't include the title of the movie in your post (with any image as a bonus), future reviewers of the same work won't be able to search for and quote it as SSJ did above, eh? I mean, it's fine if you don't mind or do that by design, I guess; just observing. ;)
 

gazza

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Gaith said:
Oi gazza, you do realize that if you don't include the title of the movie in your post (with any image as a bonus), future reviewers of the same work won't be able to search for and quote it as SSJ did above, eh? I mean, it's fine if you don't mind or do that by design, I guess; just observing. ;)


Ok gaith.the only reason i didnt put title first was because the picture had the name on it . Noted for next time thogh
 

Vultural

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My Name Ain’t Suzie - 1985 - 6/10

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Purported rebuttal to 1960‘s The World Of Suzie Wong is too little, too late.
Barely adolescent, village girls follow free-spending madam back to the Hong Kong brothel.
There, they are educated in the ways of male satisfaction, and emptying males of their folding money.
Colorful Shaw Brothers production is PG, with no nudity, let alone suggestive moaning.
Just giggling, happy hookers servicing the US Navy from the Korean conflict to Vietnam era, after which traffic ebbs.
Expect the ubiquitous bar fight.  Triad involvement hinted at, drugs and pregnancies skirt by.
Most surprising (to me) was seeing the abandoned boy the madam had raised as her own, and was turning into her private boy toy, a young Anthony Wong in his first role.
 

Vultural

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ZerØ' Days - 2016 - 7/10

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Excellent documentary of the Stuxnet computer worm, discovered by Kaspersky iin 2010.
Without spoiling too much, evidence is fairly clear this was a government operation.
This was an early salvo in cyber warfare.  Target, nuclear centrifuges.
Aftermath - the global proliferation of national cyber divisions.
Dozens of security folk interviewed, security firms and spymasters.
Do not hope for confession or clarity.
Coding jargon is basic 101, not overly technical (though I paused twice to answer questions).
For those who shrug, “This does not affect me,”  au contraire.  Targets include electrical grids, nuclear plants, dams, banking systems, hospitals, damn near anything with power and a micro processor.
 

Vultural

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Burroughs (Arena) - 1983 - 7/10

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Penetrating, if difficult biography of William Burroughs.
Childhood, the Burroughs name, the William Tell incident, drug use, travels, sex, all check listed.
Being 1983, many interviewees were still alive (including Burroughs’ son) and they were blunt.
One memorable scene has him showing his defensive weapons in his bunker.  Knives, blackjacks, and of course, guns.
College readings * were problematic for me, as listening to his prose seemed harder to decipher compared with reading.
Burroughs' growling snarl might be an acquired taste.  Nonetheless, this is an excellent overview of the man a good decade before he died.

*  Seeing some of the readings, I began wondering who current students listen to.
Not the corporate shills, media celebrities, or pop culture scribes.  The poets, the literary masters, the underground.
Do junior and senior year intelligentsia value any literary elders enough to listen to?
Salman Rushdie?  Joan Didion?  Thomas Ligotti?
 

Vultural

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Julieta - 2016 - 7/10

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Stellar return to form from Pedro Almodóvar.
Older woman, on the verge of leaving Madrid for Portugal, suddenly decides to remain.
She returns to a previous residence then sets about writing a journal - memoir about her relationships with her mother, husband, daughter.  All lost.
Writing is part therapy, part confession, meant for the daughter whom she has not seen in over a decade.
The narrative time slips, settings shift, and two different actors portray Julieta.
Much of the tone, indeed the music score, is reminiscent of a Douglas Sirk thriller.
There are no throwaway scenes in this, either, and several are outright magical.
The story pulls the viewer irresistibly into a past often shrouded with guilt and self deception.
For me, the best Almodóvar since Talk To Her (2002).
 

Vultural

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Les Témoins - 2015 - 7/10
AKA - Witnesses

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Absorbing French thriller of unearthed corpses, a serial killer, and a wolf.
Parties unknown break into model homes and arrange corpses as family units.
Most of the deceased were freshly dug, a few freshly slain.
Those draw police involvement.
One cop in particular, a famous investigator, comes out of retirement as clues are meant for him.
Not as dark as Scandinavian Noir, but full of surprises and bracing coastal scenery.
Despite a couple of bungles in the final episode, a shrewd interlocking puzzler.
 

Vultural

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13 Minutes - 2015 - 7/10
AKA - Elser

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Dramatization of a World War II footnote.
The 1939 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler that missed by 13 minutes.
Musician, factory worker, seducer, Georg Elser, decides Adolf is putting fellow Germans on a path to ruination.
He devises a powerful bomb with clockwork timer and places it inside the Munich Bürgerbräukeller.
Single-handedly.
The Gestapo disbelieve and intensify interrogations.
Well acted, and cannily arranged chronology maintain interest throughout.
Nagging questions notwithstanding, a strong drama with passing relevance to current events.
 

Vultural

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The Year The Town Hall Shrank - 2012 - 7/10

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Discouraging, often infuriating three part documentary of Stoke on Trent dealing with £35 M funding cut.
Social services particularly hard hit.  Retirement homes, childrens centers, libraries, pools ...
Refreshing to watch and listen to politicians and leaders deal with vociferous opposition.
From angry moms to the extreme right wing.
In other places, politicians hide or doubletalk or flat out lie.
This is how the sausage is made, or rather, divvied up.
Then -- there are the deadbeats.  Don’t get me started.
Everyone I viewed this with expressed strong opinions afterward.
 

gazza

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the villainess 2017 
The story of a ruthless female assassin named Sook-hee (Kim Ok-bin), who from an early age has been taught to kill. She becomes a sleeper agent for South Korea's intelligence agency, who promises her freedom after 10 years of service; however, two men from her past make an unexpected appearance in her life, bringing out dark secrets from her past.
 The story has been told different times before(nikita,la femme nikita) only this time with a dark korean movie theme.there are motorcycle chases,gun fights,katana fights,hand to hand all with beautifully dark tone.the director keeps the action flowing fast and blood and guts flowing and it has one of the best introduction scenes i have ever seen. worthy of a repeated viewing
 

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The Twilight Zone: "Nick of Time" (S2E7, 1960) (available on US Netflix)

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A man becomes obsessed with a penny-operated cafe novelty device, thinking it may have genuinely prophetic powers. Alas, the most exciting thing to actually happen is a highly dated use of the term "retarded." For your pre-Trek Shatner fixes, stick to "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Glass Eye".

1 out of 4 sly grins with a cocked eyebrow
 

Vultural

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Howl - 2015 - 6/10

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Midnight train to Eastborough slams to a stop in the Thornton forest.
Bickering, querulous passengers soon realize they are stranded and become prey.
Predictable (I guessed early meals, and called the survivor).  Limitations disguised with rain, fog and low light.
Unlike Dog Soldiers, no humor, and characters are weak, annoying or simply undeveloped.
Much as I hoped, Allen Ginsberg never appears.
Wolf pack, queue up.
 

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Cult Of The Cobra - 1955 - 5/10

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Guilty, childhood pleasure here.
Six postwar GI’s do the turista thing in Asia (India) before shipping home.
They hear of the secretive Cult Of The Cobra, lamias who can transform from human to snake.
For $100.00, the men can view the forbidden ceremony.  But - - - NO PHOTOS !!
Their guide repeats several times.  No photos!  No photos!
Guess what happens?   Ha ha ha.
Afterward, the now-Stateside ex-GI’s worry about toxic snake bites.
B-film has acceptable curse premise, snooze inducing love angle (sorry, Marshall Thompson is no romantic hunk), yet boasts a slew of future television “faces.”
Within ten years, their shows included “The F.B.I.,”  “The Big Valley,” “Daktari,” “Maverick,” “The Fugitive.”
 

TMBTM

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Au Revoir Là-Haut
2017, directed and with Albert Dupontel.

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From a 2013 novel,
the story of a young man disfigured during WWI who does not want to return to his family's home.
He is helped by his friend (Albert Dupontel) to get a new life.

Even though I'm french I rarely fall in love with recent french movies. But this one is great.
It's already a french classic to me.
Plenty of emotions, plenty of good humor despite the dark story
A must see, in my opinion.
 

Vultural

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Dark Waters - 1993 - 6/10
AKA - Temnye Vody

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After father dies, girl journeys to remote convent island, during a violent, midnight storm.
Dad had been funding the sisterhood for years and she wants to know why.
Also, she was originally born on the island, and she wonders why she was warned never to return.
A slow film, though dense with imagery and set design.
The island is riddled with caves,catacombs, candles and streams of trickling waters.
Lovecraft readers will find much to appreciate in this, as will Italian horror aficionados.
Dialogue is minimal.  Show, don’t say, definitely applies, though that rule is overruled near the end and the film suffers, I think.
 

Vultural

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Chupacabra Zombies Vs Wicked Nuns Vs Cthulhu - 2047 - 7/10

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Following rampant global warming, the chupacabra population explodes!
Worse, when killed, they revive, hungrier than ever.
Livestock is annihilated, pets disappear, small humans become unhappy meals.
A desperate group of moles evacadores (wall tunnelers) seek refuge in a sinister, fortified nunnery north of Ensenada.
Las Hermanas de Palo Mayombe.
As the gruesome siege whittles their numbers, the sisterhood misconstrue a Santerian chant and accidently invoke the dread Lord of R’yleh.
Awesome Cthulhu (who hates the over-used “awesome” word, by the way).
Harlequin Film’s first foray into Horror boasts jaw-dropping special effects.
Cthulhu, churning from the Pacific Ocean, capsizing cruise liners, unforgettable!
Cthulhu’s hundreds of tentacles squeezing pudgy, pleading passengers until their heads pop off, nightmare!
On the other hand, the de rigueur romance storyline is preposterous!
Horny young nun (who wears a habit but no bra) and the way-too-cute pizza delivery guy?  Really?
How does the Pepperoni Kid peddle his bicycle through ravenous chupacabras?  With a stack of pizzas?
Producers must assume if viewers buy that, they will buy anything.
 
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