German Film Festival 2023: Sisi & I Movie Review
The movie revolves around her relationship with Countess Irma Sztáray (Sandra Hüller) who started as her lady-in-waiting but became much more. The film begins after the period when Sisi gave birth to the royal children and focuses on the time she spent away from her husband on Corfu, an island off the coast of Greece.
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During this separation, she was able to indulge her every whim and led a hedonist lifestyle where all those around her had to indulge her outside ...
Living With Chucky Movie Review
This documentary starts with an assembly of talking heads describing the temper of the times. An era where anti-heroes were fuelling a new wave of horror films that had likeable villains. This started with Freddy Krueger from Wes Carven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street and gathered momentum when writer Don Mancini created the Chucky character for the film Child’s Play in 1988.
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The maniacal doll proved so popular that they eventually spun off a series of films under ...
Mafia Mamma Movie Review
Kristin (Toni Collette) is a woman who gives everything to others, leaving very little for herself. She is tied to a job that has no respect for her and a deadbeat husband that takes full advantage of her good nature. Her one shining light, a teenage son has just flown the coop to go to college.
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Into this situation drops the news of her distant grandfather's passing away and her being summoned to Italy to take over the running of the family business. She meets ...
The Pope’s Exorcist Movie Review
Those laughs are often countered by the intensity of the possession scenes. They are more than reminiscent of that granddaddy of the genre, The Exorcist. Those moments are delightfully over the top and build to a bat-shit-crazy crescendo by the film’s end.
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When Julia (Alex Essoe), Amy (Laurel Marsden) and Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) first roll up to the creepy castle-like structure in the middle of nowhere, it’s not long before things go bump in the night. ...
Air Movie Review
His alignment with the shoe company Nike and the contract he signed that gave him a percentage of each shoe with his name on it was groundbreaking and changed the industry overnight. Air provides a fascinating look at the human endeavour behind the scenes of this monumental event.
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Matt Damon is Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike employee most responsible for signing Jordon to the brand. A brand at the time that was lagging in sales in the basketball shoe market. The film, ...
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Movie Review
It’s been over twenty years since that last cinematic effort and the ensuing two decades plus of CGI advancement has led to a much richer palette this time. It’s to the filmmaker's credit that they have developed a script that puts character development on equal terms with the computer-generated effects.
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Engineered to bring the role players out of the house and into the cinema, this film version of DnD works hard at establishing character skins you would want ...
Shazam! Fury of the Gods Movie Review
Fury of the Gods mixes mythical magic with an ethos that promotes family and the value of friendship. There is still the prerequisite amount of spectacle but the heroes here have doubts and less than absolute conviction. It makes them more relatable to a younger audience.
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The story revolves around gods being released from purgatory and returning to earth to wreak havoc and plant the seeds of human destruction. The trio of baddies is led by Hespera played by Helen ...
Scream VI Movie Review
Minutes in and the first blonde is dispensed with in a most bloody fashion. Playing the first hand dealt is a red herring but this accelerated level of energy helps to grab the audience's attention. As the story develops there is more than a slight reliance on knowing the broad strokes of the franchise.
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The Munch masked marauder is portrayed as an even more relentless killer and this fills every scene with a strong sense of danger. And in traditional slasher film ...
Till Movie Review
Based on the true story of the murder of a fourteen-year-old black boy named Emmett Louis Till. This case galvanised the civil rights movement of the time and in turn, created one of the era’s strongest proponents of change, Till’s mother Mamie Till-Bradley.
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Emmett was raised by his single-parent mother in Chicago and during a visit to relatives in Mississippi fell afoul of the racist customs and was kidnapped and ultimately killed. His mother’s insistence ...
Champions Movie Review
When one of the Farrelly Brothers became attached to the project (this time brother Bobby) it didn’t bode well to match the charm of the original film. But the results are somewhat surprising. Champions is a more warm-hearted character study and less the expected ribald comedy.
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Woody Harrelson is Marcus, a basketball coach who runs afoul of the law and is given a community service sentence to coach a group of individuals with intellectual disabilities. His ...
