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  Shadow Builder 1998

  Watched by John Cribbs 28 Oct 2021

  The movie starts off just rite, with goateed rogue priest Michael Rooker wildly firing two laser-sight guns at a fleeing cloud of demonic black smoke. He's there to take down some kind of nude conspiracy spearheaded by an evil archbishop to conjure a shadow demon, but fails to nail the incorporeal perp which quickly spreads through the town, transforming the population into ax-wielding maniacs. "Factor obscurantis" isn't nearly as intimidating once he becomes a solid monster (he's more Wishmaster than the…

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  Andersonville 1996

  Watched by John Cribbs 28 Aug 2021

  James Downey tells of an early 80's SNL sketch that absolutely killed at the table read: Bob Newhart plays a Civil War officer who stands over one of his dying troops and agrees to honor the kid's final wish, to write to the mother and let her know that her boy was killed doing his duty. Cut to three weeks later, Newhart is sharing a tent with Bill Murray who turns and asks, "Did you ever write that letter?" Newhart…

Popular reviews

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  Candyman 2021

  Watched by John Cribbs 26 Aug 2021

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Half Jordan Peele thesis paper, half mess.

  I know we're supposed to call this "Nia DaCosta's CANDYMAN," but it shares with Peele's other movies a social statement that's somehow both glaringly obvious and fundamentally incoherent. The movie can't resist connecting #SayHisName to the basic concept of naming the hook-handed mirror ghost to bring him forward, but who is this version of the monster supposed to be punishing? Cops? Teenagers who take selfies? Successful black couples who try to pretend they…

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  Total Recall 1990

  Added by John Cribbs 2

  In his science fiction films, Verhoeven is on a perpetual search for the human soul. In ROBOCOP, he went about unearthing the humanity encased inside machine; in HOLLOW MAN, he divorced body and mind to see if consciousness remained (it didn't.) With TOTAL RECALL he presented himself with a real challenge: to discover the soul of Arnold Schwarzenegger. A typically distracted blue collar bloke, driven by the obscure desire to escape his earthly confines and unfulfilled existence to become somebody…