Nothing makes a demon feel welcome like a child experiencing trouble at home. If mom and dad aren’t getting along, a demon always comes calling for that child. This is the setup for Other Mommy, where the demon appears in the form of the child’s mother–who is alive and well. Playing the role of both mommies is Jessica Chastain, and her performance in the dual role elevates the movie above its modest jump-scare aspirations.
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“The sexiest thing is the mind.” Although this quote has been misattributed to Sigmund Freud, it rings true anyway, because the mind is the source of our desires. I thought of this while watching Verity, the latest cinematic adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel. As a sexy thriller, it curiously never generates heat despite providing the requisite glimpses of skin and a few sexual encounters. What does the trick is the dialog, which proves that talking about wickedness can be just as exciting as seeing it in action.. Freud would have been proud.
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In hindsight, the idea behind Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator was brilliant. Take one part reality TV, one part investigative journalism, one part voyeurism, season with righteous anger and presto–out comes huge ratings. The sensationalistic pull of the show was hard to resist. Who wouldn’t want to watch child predators humiliated, handcuffed and dragged away by cops? The show delivered as promised, regardless of the ethical and legal concerns raised along the way. But what effect did the show have on those behind it, who compromised their morals in exchange for success? That’s the question the movie addresses, in the most audacious way possible.
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As a parent, I know all about the weight of parental responsibility. Every decision I make takes that responsibility into consideration, because a bad one can have disastrous repercussions for myself and my child. The Weight is about the worst possible outcome, where a father’s child is unfairly taken away from him because of his heat-of-the-moment reaction. The movie uses that setup to delve into other forms of societal injustice, highlighting how little has changed from one hundred years ago to today. It’s an angry movie at its core, but with good reason.
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One thing I’ve learned from watching action movies is to never let a ridiculous plot get in the way of being entertained. Runner is such a movie, which involves a donated liver that can only be transplanted into someone with the extremely rare RH- blood type, or as they say in this movie, “RH null”. How rare? The internet tells me that only fifty living people are estimated to have this blood type. This means that the odds of a donor suddenly becoming available are extremely high. So when it’s revealed that two people with that same blood type both need the liver, well, I shrugged and rolled with it.
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Having watched 2022’s Fall and its sequel, the curiously titled Fall 2: Deadpoint, I’m convinced that I would never survive the contrived scenarios of either film. It’s not because I would get confused over when to clip-in and clip-out, or how to climb a rusty centuries-old ladder. It’s because when I needed to get some sleep while stranded on a platform or wooden plank overlooking a tremendous drop, I would roll over and plunge to my death. Tossing and turning would be my downfall, so to speak.
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Buddy works best as a satire on Barney and other children’s shows. Its overall construction is a jumble, but when the movie hits, its black comedy gold. Cristin Milioti gifts her fans with another engaging performance in her increasingly eclectic career. Recommended. Continue reading Buddy
Being a dental hygienist is a thankless job. They diligently scrape off the gunk build-up on our teeth, fully aware that they’re going to do the same thing in six months. Which is why I would advise that anyone interested in this career avoid Insidious: Out of the Further. Not only is the kindly hygienist in this movie forced to clean the worst set of teeth I’ve ever seen, he has a second pair like a geriatric Zenomorph! Maybe that Starbucks barista job would be a better option after all.
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Since 1993, almost every movie released that featured dinosaurs had “Jurassic” in the title. This is strange, given how often Hollywood studios copy off of each other’s homework. The End of Oak Street is the first serious attempt at a dinosaur movie outside of that franchise, and it made me wonder why it took so long. There’s plenty of action involving humans either running away from or being eaten by elaborate CGI dinosaurs, which is precisely what we want from a movie like this. If anything, it should inspire those behind the Jurassic films to make better sequels.
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As the saying goes, the internet is made of cats. Which is true because it’s the best way for cat lovers to both share and watch videos starring their favorite animals. Since there are so many videos of cats doing inexplicable things that anyone can readily watch on their phone, how does one explain the ongoing popularity of the CatVideoFest film series? (It began in 2019, and after a Covid lull has steadily grown over the past five years.) To paraphrase Homer Simpson, why would people pay to watch something they can already watch for free?
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