January, 2021
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Hunt for the Wilderpeople
★★★★
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Peppermint
★★★ -
Rocketman
★★★★ -
Catch Me If You Can
★★★★
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Citizen Kane
★★★
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Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
★★★
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December, 2020
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Soul
★★★
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Die Hard: With a Vengeance
★★★
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Die Hard 2
★★★
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Die Hard
★★★★
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Home Alone
★★★ -
The Banker
★★★★ -
Elf
★★★
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Klaus
★★★★
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Last Flag Flying
★★★
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A Bad Moms Christmas
★★
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Six Days Seven Nights
★★★ -
Cruel Intentions
★★★
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Prospect
★★★★
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Holidate
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November, 2020
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The Family
★★★★
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The Grinch
★★ -
The Christmas Chronicles
★★★★ -
Carrie Pilby
★★★
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Fisherman’s Friends
★★★
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28 Days
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Pleasantville
★★★
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Downhill
★★★ -
Alien
★★★
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Shoplifters
★★★
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Palm Springs
★★★★
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The Willoughbys
★★★
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October, 2020
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I'm Thinking of Ending Things
★★★
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A Nightmare on Elm Street
★★★
First time seeing this!
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Death Becomes Her
★★★
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Gemini Man
★★
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Enola Holmes
★★★
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Nosferatu
★
Watched in preparation for a horror themed D&D campaign, but there wasn’t much to glean from this, and the story was poor. Maybe audiences in the 20s could get more from these silent films than I can.
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September, 2020
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Bill & Ted Face the Music
★★★
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Bring It On
★★★
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Black Panther
★★★★★
Rest in power, Chadwick. Wakanda Forever. Black Lives Matter.
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August, 2020
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An Education
★★★ -
The Business of Being Born
★★
Educational but lacking in evidence and sources, making it mostly anecdotal. What’s being said sounds right but I want to be able to confirm it or at least hear hard numbers from high quality (large, randomized, etc.) trials with anything medical.
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Harriet
★★★
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July, 2020
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The One I Love
★★★★
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The Last Thing He Wanted
★★★★
The plot here is sometimes confusing but it’s an enthralling journey of a reporter following the trail of guns and violence through Central America, whose father is selling those American guns into that violence, and who becomes embroiled in the story she is trying to report.
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Taxi Driver
★★★
I think this one went over my head
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Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
★★
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Sister Act
★★
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Dark Phoenix
★★★
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Date Night
★★★
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Away We Go
★★★
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Hamilton
★★★★★
I’m so disappointed that I didn’t have the opportunity to see this on Broadway. Miranda sore’s am amazing job writing (if perhaps not singing) Hamilton’s story.
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June, 2020
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13th
★★★★
There is so much in this documentary that I didn’t know. Eye opening.
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The Lovebirds
★★★
Just as they’re breaking up, this relationship gets the perfect defibrillator: a hijacking murder that they’re on the hook for unless they can find the killer.
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May, 2020
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire
★★★★
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Bad Education
★★★★
A school superintendent and assistant superintendent, both of whom seem to genuinely care about their jobs and students and school’s success, embezzle $11 million. Some of Hugh Jackman’s best acting, if not the best.
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Solo: A Star Wars Story
★★★★
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April, 2020
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The Hudsucker Proxy
★★★★
My parents had a VHS if this in the house. I watched it once or twice but I definitely didn’t remember much of it and wasn’t old enough to understand the jokes anyway.
It’s good, but maybe the Coen brothers have improved since the mid-nineties.
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Friends with Kids
★★★★
Cute movie, but I didn’t actually want the main characters to get together. He wasn’t a very good person and that never changed, and she had an amazing (other) guy who she should have stayed with.
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Midsommar
★★★
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The Florida Project
★★★★
The world of extended stay motels near Disney World through the eyes of a Sox year old girl. Magical and tragic.
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
★★★★
The scariest, most powerful, most evil Vader we see in the films.
Do DOO do do do do DOO DOOO
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Avengers: Endgame
★★★★
I saw this tweet about reactions to Cap picking up Mjolnir and had to see this again.
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The Incredible Jessica James
★★★★
Jessica Williams and Chris O’Down aren’t characters I’d necessarily have cast together, but they’re really funny opposite each other here. A feminist, honest take on the rom com.
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Rocketman
★★★★
I’ve been enjoying musical biopics lately (Yesterday, Bohemian Rhapsody) and decided to throw this one on while working today. It’s pretty good! Taron Egerton has a nice voice for this and as this is a musical in its own right, with characters breaking into song as part of the story, that’s important.
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The Hustle
★★★
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Yesterday
★★★★
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Father of the Bride
★★★ -
The Kitchen
★★★★
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March, 2020
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Cloverfield
★★★★
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Onward
★★★★
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Bridesmaids
★★★ -
The Darjeeling Limited
★★★★
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February, 2020
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The Invisible Man
★★★
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Newsies
★★
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Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
★★★
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The Laundromat
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January, 2020
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1917
★★★★
It’s rare that a film, and especially a war flick, can keep an audience in the edge of its seat so well. I bit a fingernail to the nub on this one! Visceral And intense thanks to the single shot.
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Little Women
★★★★
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The Irishman
★★★★
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The Favourite
★★★
This review may contain spoilers.
Four stars until it got very weird at the end.
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November, 2019
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Klaus
★★★
I was led to believe that this was a Christmas comedy and I was very pleased to be crying once or twice at touching moments.
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Crazy, Stupid, Love.
★★★
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The King
★★★
Entertaining and educational dramatization of the events of Henry II’s coming to the throne and events of the Battle of Agincourt.
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Knives Out
★★★★
The butler in kitchen with the candlestick.
But seriously, Rian kept Hannah and I guessing the whole time. Unfortunately no clues as to what really happened until it’s all revealed. Red (and blue and green) herrings galore.
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Doctor Sleep
★★★★
I’ve heard that King didn’t like The Shining’s film adaption, but I always did. Now I think maybe I know why he didn’t, if the book included more explanation of Shining. This is a really interesting follow up. My hair was standing up several times and there were a few jumping moments, but the content and concept were really intriguing.
In context of Kong’s works sharing a multiverse, and the similar story feeing between Doctor Sleep and The Institute which I recently read, I’m interested in whether Shining, the smoke, and seeing the spots are actually the same powers manifesting differently.
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Jojo Rabbit
★★★★
I’m not crying you’re crying
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October, 2019
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The Lighthouse
★★★
Two men get dropped off at a lighthouse for a 4 week shift, get stranded when a storm hits, become alcoholics, and go crazy. Or, one of them does.
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Time Trap
★★★
An interesting take on the fountain of youth. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
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Calendar Girls
★★
A little skin goes a long way.
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Stranger Than Fiction
★★★★
This is one of films I remember as a favorite growing up. I recall thinking that it was unique as a Will Ferrell that wasn’t Spector a comedy. This is a funny movie, but it does hold up better than a lot of the other crap I liked in high school.
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Lincoln
★★★★
The way that the 13th amendment was pushed through by bribery, threatening, and lies hits a little too close to home with how politics work today.
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Man Up
★★★★
Quirky and delightful. Nancy, a down on her dating luck thirty-something, accidentally takes over a blind date with Jack, a down on his dating luck forty year old. Man Up was funny and original, and had cameos from two Game of Thrones actors.
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Joker
★★★★
I have to wonder, how much of this actually happened, and how much is an unreliable narrator?
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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
★★
This review may contain spoilers.
Everyone you like will did I guess? Is that the moral here?
Some good singing though.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi
★★★★
This review may contain spoilers.
The Rey-Kyle/Ben dynamic in Last Jedi is really interesting. I love how the sequences where they could see each other were done.
The cinematography is also amazing. Kilo and Luke facing off, Kyle and Rey both Force Pulling the lightsaber, and my favorite: Holdo sending her ship through Snoke’s Supremacy with the light from a star shining through.
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Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons
★★★
D&D art is so beautiful and evocative. I’d love to own an original. This documentary, which included interviews with some of the great D&D artists from the TSR era (Caldwell, Elmore, DiTerlizzi, Law, Easley) was interesting but not emotive.
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September, 2019
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Isn't It Romantic
★★
I really expected this to be funnier than it was.
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A Simple Favor
★★★
Lots of twists here.
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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
★★★
Ben Stiller directs and stars as Walter Mitty, a man who’s only ever daydreamed of doing anything with his life, living vicariously through photos sent to him at LIFE by legendary photographer Sean O’Connel, until he embarks on a journey of a lifetime to track down a missing negative quintessentially “LIFE”.
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Late Night
★★★★
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