Month: June 2025

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Materialists

Materialists

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At first blush, Materialists looks like a typical romantic comedy, where an attractive single woman is forced to choose between two suitors.  Option A is the handsome, rich, older man she’s just met and could give her everything she wants.  Option B is a man closer to her age who’s scrapping by, but who she connects with because they were once in love.  Since both options are good–for different reasons–the fun is in waiting for the heroine to make her choice.  Although Materialists follows the same formula, Celine Song’s follow-up to her wonderful Past Lives aims higher.  It invites you to reflect upon your dating experiences and asks, how did you end up with the love of your life?

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Dangerous Animals

Dangerous Animals

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Horror movies have always given sound advice of where not to go on your vacation.  For example, you really shouldn’t stay at that ominous-looking hotel up on the hill (Psycho), or your friend’s cabin in the middle of the woods (Evil Dead), or that hostel in Slovakia (Hostel).  Dangerous Animals suggests that despite the obvious reasons for visiting Brisbane’s Gold Coast in Australia, you probably don’t want to go there either.  Because even an exciting tourist activity like swimming with the sharks may very well end up being unexpectedly life-altering.  But if you really can’t resist, definitely let your loved ones know what your plans are before you climb aboard that boat.  That way, they’ll know where to start searching for your body parts when you go missing.

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Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

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In Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, a thoroughly charming romantic comedy in French and English, we’re shown how problematic it can be to expect life to unfold like a plot in one of Ms. Austen’s works.  Agathe (Camille Rutherford), the tortured writer at the center of the film, has been waiting for an unexpected turn of events that will propel her past her insecurities and doubts.  Life, however, refuses to cooperate and Agathe drifts along without purpose.  Fortunately, her loved ones take the initiative to force her out of her self-induced inertia, which sets Agathe on a journey remarkably similar to one of Austen’s heroines.

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Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

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For the past several years, the message surrounding Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was that it would mark Tom Cruise’s last go-around as IMF leader and indestructible hero Ethan Hunt.  Unfortunately, despite the craftsmanship and daredevil antics of Cruise, this movie isn’t as enjoyable as the previous entry, Dead Reckoning – Part One. Instead, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and his filmmaking collaborator Tom Cruise have used the overriding sense of finality as justification for a slew of clumsy narrative choices that threaten to sink the film to the bottom of the ocean.  Although Final Reckoning is often exciting, it’s clumsy instead of nimble, tripping over its own feet while doing things that previous entries had wisely avoided.

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