Movie Reviews
Culture Editor and Critic Murjani Rawls provides his thoughts on the latest theatrical and streaming releases.
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‘Good Burger 2’ is the same order with some interchangeable condiments
Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson return as a 26 year break and don’t miss a beat even if the story is hit or miss.
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‘Raging Grace’ moves like a gothic mystery, more about the dangerous plights of immigrant workers
Writer/director Paris Zarcilla’s feature uses a Filipina mother and daughter story to uncover a Succession like mystery plot.
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‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ is more than a franchise continuance cash grab
Francis Lawrence’s prequel tells the story of eventual mega antagonist Coriolanus Snow that justifies why it’s hear.
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‘Wish’ is Disney’s immense IP catalog parade that loses the story within
This a movie that is about wishes to the altars of previous characters that doesn’t focus on it’s current ones.
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‘Bye Bye Barry’ explains the selfless nature of the Lions great and why he walked away from the game he loved
Barry Sanders shocked the world with his retirement fax in 1999 in the prime of his career. A new documentary gives insight on that choice and the man behind it.
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‘Dream Scenario’s Kristoffer Borgli speaks on societal phenomenons, influencer culture, and how his film shapes it all
The writer/director discusses his new film starring Nicolas Cage, dreams, nightmares, and everywhere in between.
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‘Saltburn’ loses ground in trying to convince you it’s underplaying its clear eat-the-rich- theme
Emerald Fennell’s second feature shuffles around ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ for an eat-the-rich tale that doesn’t pick a definite side.
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‘Thanksgiving’ is where the ‘Grindhouse’ trailer becomes a lean and funny slasher
Eli Roth’s full length film based off his short 2007 trailer gives you a goodie bag of things to be thankful for.
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‘Next Goal Wins’ gives off more red card flavor than goal-scoring celebrations
Taika Waititi takes on the American Samoa historic FIFA loss and redemption arc with all of the comeback tropes you’d expect.
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‘Divinity’ is Eddie Alcazar’s weird, lascivious, and wild take on immortality’s burden
Stephen Dorff plays a supplement salesman that promises living for an eternity, but nothing ever comes without a price.
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The Skrulls continue to get the rawest deal in the MCU
Through ‘Captain Marvel,’ ‘Secret Invasion,’ ands now ‘The Marvels,’ can these shape shifting aliens please get some piece?
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‘The Killer’ has David Fincher and Michael Fassbender combine for an entertaining, stoic portrait of an assassin
Drawing from the French graphic novel series of the same name, an contract killer goes on a revenge tour after a job doesn’t go as planned.
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‘The Marvels’ crosses the finish line on the might and charm of its trio
Writer/director Nia DaCosta allows the talented ensemble of Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani to make the most of this MCU experience.
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Awkwafina and Sandra Oh liven up ‘Quiz Lady’ as sisters with highly different personalities
Jessica Yu’s feature has a lot of familiarity regarding its shell, but does enough right to distinguish itself.
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‘The Mill’ criticizes the exploitative methods of capitalism and wanes due to the film’s length
The Hulu sci-fi horror hybrid finds a manager (Lil Rel) in a cell fighting for his life and freedom under the thumb of an Alexa-speaking authority.
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‘Fingernails’ places love’s natural order and a sci-fi-like process on opposite ends
Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White star in Christos Nikou’s film, where society at large affirms love by a rather painful procedure.
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‘Nyad’ declares its perseverance theme loudly inside the rough tide of storytelling
Annette Bening melts into the famous distance swimmer who famously took the 111 mile trek from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida.
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‘Elvis’ and ‘Priscilla’ view the King from distinct points of hero admiration and needed critique. It’s complicated.
Baz Luhrmann and Sofia Coppola’s films use Priscilla Presley and Colonel Tom Parker to show different sides of who the legend was.
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Life is portrayed as a serene Graceland dream and restrictive castle in ‘Priscilla’
Sofia Coppola draws from the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me and crafts a film with Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny prioritizing the gaze of the young girl who lived through it.
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‘Sister Death’ works as a change-of-pace and style prequel to 2017’s ‘Veronica’
Paco Plaza’s Netflix sequel prefers the slow-burn stylistic of a ghastly mystery over the shock of possession horror centering Aria Bedmar’s performance.
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‘Pain Hustlers’ exists past its prescription date with a story that wastes Emily Blunt’s performance
David Yates’s combines satire of big pharma with some real life inspiration and a comeback story that isn’t the right mix of ingredients.
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Aristotle Torres’s ‘Story Ave’ speaks to the essence of art and the meaning of giving second chances
A high school student named Kadir (Asante Blacck), with a talent for art, seeks guidance after the unexpected death of his brother in a familiar, but compelling drama.
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‘Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor’ review: A found footage franchise learns new tricks
Writer/director Stephen Cognetti takes us out of the Abaddon Hotel and into the Carmichael Manor for a new installment that goes frontwards and backward while not losing itself.
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‘Five Nights At Freddy’s’ animatronic horrors short circuits by trying to be too much
The film adaptation of the popular gaming franchise is sadly light on scares and places emphasis on plot or at least inferring it will try to explain it.
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‘The Holdovers’ finds its holiday spirit in not sugarcoating the difficulties of getting there
Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti reunite, where three people have to spend the Christmas and New Year's holidays together at a boarding school.
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‘Appendage’s creature feature premise hones in on repressed trauma and nagging inner voices
An aspiring fashion star balances the many instances of trauma and regret on her plate until it physically manifests into a creature taking on her negative self-talk.
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‘Old Dads’ is full of generational gripes and “remember those days' requiems
Bill Burr sits in the director’s chair to speak at the pitfalls of getting old in a world you understand, but mostly to yell.
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‘May December’ is an uneasy, moral tugging, acting tour-de-force
Director Todd Haynes brings the talented ensemble of Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton together to stretch at your sense of right and wrong.
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Lily Gladstone-led ‘Fancy Dance’ speaks the truthful plights of indigenous women and bonds that keep them together
Erica Tremblay’s feature centers itself on a disappearance, but develops with a relationship between aunt and niece.
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‘Milli Vanilli’ documentary speaks about the lip-syncing duo that was and the machine behind them
Director Luke Korem explores the disgraced pop duo’s story in more detail about the culture that made them and the backlash afterward.
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In ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ love is used as a weapon against the Osage community
The marriage story between Ernest and Mollie Burkhart is not one of love in the conventional sense, but is used to depict on how the emotion can be used to deceive and infect a community from outsider.
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Anthony Mackie and Zoë Chao find love extremely far away from home in ‘If You Were the Last’
Two astronauts floating away in space for three years wonder contemplate relations and end up with something more.