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  Crimes of the Future 2022

  Watched by John Cribbs 07 Jun 2022 4

  The other day I was talking about Akira Kurosawa's DERSU UZALA, a brilliant film that was dismissed by even some of the great man's biggest fans and scholars upon release. One of the lessons I took from watching it is to not be so easily dismissive of the late works of master filmmakers - I specifically cited David Cronenberg, a director I love whose filmography of the last 17 years has been more than a little shaky.

  Well, like the…

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  Torn Curtain 1966

  Watched by John Cribbs 03 Mar 2022

  My favorite part of this incredibly dumb film is when Paul Newman shouts "FIRE!" in a theater in Germany and everybody instantly screams and runs for the exits.

  I think this is what writer Brian Moore was talking about when he said Hitchcock displayed "a profound ignorance of human motivation."

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…