Tag Archives: Romance

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

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Now in Wider Release Exclusively in Theaters.

Rose Glass’s crime thriller is a rotten and often grotesque neo-noir that kept me glued to the screen from beginning to end. Like more neo-noir’s, Glass’s film centers on morally gray protagonists doing battle with amoral characters, all of whom are couped up in such a small town. Corruption and violence is never too far away and “Loves Lies Bleeding” centers on Lou and Jackie, both of whom are desperate to escape their confines. More and more their lives feel like prisons, with their whole source of misery pointed toward domestic dysfunction.

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Mean Girls: The Musical (2024)

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Now Available on Digital Streaming.

Despite the flack that it received this year from a lot of anti-musical individuals that transformed “Mean Girls: The Musical” in to a tik tok meme, at the end of it all Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr’s film ended up being much ado about nothing. It can’t be that narratives can’t translate in to musicals since “Hairspray” was excellent. But when all was said and done “Mean Girls: The Musical” ended up being an okay movie. It wasn’t what I’d call awful, but it’s by no means in the upper echelons of musicals like “Grease” or even “Teen Beach Movie.”

It’s a just fine, pretty okay movie that just made me want to rewatch the original classic.

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Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

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Director Zelda Williams and Diablo Cody’s “Lisa Frankenstein” doesn’t just wear its influences on its sleeves, it bedazzles those influences and flashes its sleeves around proudly. “Lisa Frankenstein” watches as if Diablo Cody pitched: “Remember “Edward Scissorhands”? What if “Edward Scissorhands” but in the 80’s?” All the cards are set up from minute one, from the Gothic animated opening sequence, and the pastel photography, while Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse do their very best Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp impersonations.

Mix in “Heathers,” “My Boyfriend’s Back,” and “Warm Bodies” and we’re given what is essentially a ton of talent with no place to go.

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Darkman (1990): Collector’s Edition [4K UHD/Blu-ray]

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The one thing about Sam Raimi’s movies is that good or bad, very few of them age poorly. Even for a movie made in the early nineties at an age where every studio were seeking to duplicate the success of “Batman,” Raimi makes “Darkman” his own movie. It’s a superhero movie in the horror vein where our masked dark avenger is also a deformed an unhinged Frankenstein monster. Something in the vein of Brundlefly, Liam Neeson really does offer up a wildly unique and off the rails performance.

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Love and Work (2023) [Slamdance 2024]

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The Slamdance Film Festival runs Digitally and In-Person from January 19th to January 28th.

Much as I tried I just couldn’t click in to Pete Oh’s world that he painted for the audience. Everything about his movie is a science fiction dystopia centered on the irony that everyone loves to be subjugated and work themselves to the bone. With the whole reversal of the concept of the working class, as well as the central plot of the narrative of two people accidentally learning what pleasure and relaxation feels like, I was relatively bored most of the time.

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Marie (2014)

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Director Alfredo Tanaka’s short film is more about the experience and technical prowess he presents than about the narrative. The narrative, to its credit, feels a lot like some kind of contemporary folklore that breaches the ideas about tragic love and living up to the wealthy and elite. “Marie” is a weird and absolutely bizarre movie, but one that works well thanks to the pretty great direction, top notch editing, and just bang up make up effects.

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The Allnighter (2022)

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I’ll admit, I didn’t think I would like Aimee Graham’s arthouse drama, mainly because the premise is kind of bizarre. It begins as this kind of weird night out with two random people, then devolves in to a car theft and odd detours, and then transforms in to this pretty hypnotizing drama about two kindred spirits. Despite the narrative that feels like it goes literally everywhere, “The Allnighter” is thankfully not hindered by this one caveat. Truth be told, “The Allnighter” is altogether pretty stellar, and it’s a film that kept me hooked right through the very end.

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