2024 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival – Comandante Movie Review
Salvatore Todaro (Pierfrancesco Favino - World War Z and Angels & Demons) was a real-life World War II veteran, who even though he was saddled with a severe back injury continued to serve in the Italian army. He was given command of the submarine Comandante Cappellini and asked to join the Battle of the Atlantic.
That battle, which was the longest continuous military campaign of the War was a horrendous campaign and led to an unimaginable number of casualties both civilian and ...
The Wild Robot Movie Review
Her software allows her to learn and eventually understand and communicate with the native fauna. After accidentally destroying a family's bird nest she becomes the sole protector of Brightbill (Kit Connor) and also befriends an outcast fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal). She remains an outcast herself and this creates a bond between the three.
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It speaks to the quality of the writing that these computer-generated characters are imbued with such emotional resonance that ...
Speak No Evil Movie Review
The Daltons’ family unit, which also includes daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) are strangely drawn to Paddy, his partner Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their son Ant (Dan Hough). Louise is hesitant but Ben sees a free spirit in Paddy that he misses in himself and is willing to look past the eccentricities that Paddy has in overabundance. After the Italian holiday finishes, they are invited to join their new friends at their home in England.
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What starts as a ...
Hinckley – I Shot The President Movie Review
John Warnock Hinckley Jr. was born to a wealthy family in Ardmore, Oklahoma and enjoyed that privilege to live a pleasant and incident-free childhood but under that facade of normalcy lay a fragile psyche. That he lived in a country that didn’t prioritise mental health and made guns as easy to buy as the local paper set him on a course of impending trouble.
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Hinckley wandered through life until obsession took over his thought process. The 1976 Martin Scorsese ...
A Million Days Movie Review
Anderson (Simon Merrells) is an astronaut on the eve of a space mission. His mind is clouded by an obsession with finding out the circumstances behind the tragic loss of a female comrade who was lost out in space during a mission. He is hard-wired to think only in facts but the night before launch will have an indelible effect on that state of mind.
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He lives in relative isolation with his partner Sam (Kemi-Bo Jacobs). She is an expert on AI and helped design a ...
Blink Twice Movie Review
Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her gal pal Jess (Alia Shawkat) are two young ladies trying to make ends meet. When they get a job hostessing at a fundraising gala they come in contact with Slater King (Channing Tatum). The tech billionaire is fighting the cancel culture after a transgression that is never fully explained and the fundraiser is part of his road back. After their paths cross, King invites them to his island for a weekend of excess.
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Once on the island, things seem too ...
Alien: Romulus Movie Review
The formation of new and inventive ways of creating peril is impressive. Even hardcore fans of the franchise will be surprised and delighted with the results as will their ability to pick up on the easter eggs scattered throughout. It successfully sets out for something new while still respecting what has come before.
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Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) is a mining worker that gets screwed over by the megacorporation Weyland-Yutani. Having extended her tour ...
The President’s Wife Movie Review
Based ever so slightly on real life, National Treasure Catherine Deneuve plays Bernadette Chirac, wife of France’s 22nd President Jacques Chirac. After years of servitude to her husband’s career, when the time arrives for her to take residency in the Elysée, she doesn’t take kindly to the marginal position she is expected to live in.
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Her emergence from the shadows cast by Jacques underlines most of the film’s humour. It’s marvellous to see ...
The Teacher Who Promised the Sea Movie Review
The film is based on the book Unearthing the Silence: Antoni Benaiges, the master who promises the sea by Francesc Escribano and it is a powerful indictment against unchecked power and conservative thinking. In 1935 Antoni began teaching in a small village in the province of Burgos. His unique (for the time) teaching techniques were not well received nor was his political stance, one that openly opposed Fascism.
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Loved by all of his students yet loathed by their ...
Fly Me To The Moon Movie Review
Kelly Jones (Johansson) is a marketing and promotional genius from the Big Apple who plays fast and loose with the truth and is perfect for the job. After the tragic loss of the three astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee in a fire that happened during a training exercise, the race to the moon is lagging in popularity and it is Jones who is coerced into helping with lifting those sagging numbers.
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She runs headlong in the the conservative ways of ...
