The details identified were gratifyingly fresh. The movie is relentless from beginning to end, setting up the dreams of boys as they're woked into becoming men in a war that could have been avoided. The significance that war is not a boys game runs throughout. War creates toxic men and brave soldiers with hell in their dreams. The politics were presented with the right amount of exposure and clarity. I understood it. A great musical score minimizes itself so the story can sing. It sang with an orchestra. Deft hands aplenty and cheers. 21-Jan-2023

Christian Bale plays his detective with self-control and whispers. The man is unnervingly entertaining. The film takes you to a place you don't want to be but since you're there, why not try it? It hooks its audience immediately. Edgar Allan Poe becoming his deputy, figuring clues and outsmarting the other, was fun. I almost expected young Sherlock to show up with his dancing pastries. I thought Lady Gillian was one of those pastries. You couldn't get enough of her. The investigation is the whole of the film and the soul is the end. 12-Jan-2023

A man enters a midlife crises when his bff dumps him for being boring. Since the dumper never explains what's at the heart of the matter we must presume that he is exhausted with his life and is pissing his bff off because he needs someone to pump some protein into it. Colin Farrell is the hopeful dope who has nothing going on except for animals, his sister's company and a daily bar visit with friends. He expresses his disappointment by unraveling himself and the town. It starts as a cute quirk and grows darker and deeper. Friends want reasons why their friends no longer like them. They don't want to hear that they're boring. They want a lie that softens the gut punch. Eyes are focused on Farrell for expressing so many beautiful things. Expansive vistas, smart thinking and continuous motion-causing frustration. The director panned twice away from Colin crying and I was so disappointed. Colin is an adorable cryer. You want to hug him. He's so puppyish. Brendan Gleason can teach his own class. Kerry Condon matched. Barry Keoghan should get a new acting coach. I thought he was making up the accent. I looked it up, its real. That doesn't explain the false glow. 13-Dec-2022

A child fasts to appease god and clear her family of their sins. Faith, in the hands of a child, can be a destructive thing. Pugh remains on, for the duration, as an investigative nurse that wants to clear the bullshit. The director keeps us trapped and enrapt. You can only fight a fable by trading it for another. Well done. 17-Nov-2022

I would have preferred The Cage to the Chalk Line because the english title sounds like a gimmick used to limit production costs. The director accommodated the mood, the actors stood in place but its details provided little depth. I know the what but not the why. The script was written on a typewriter/tik tok adding machine with limited credit. 29-Oct-2022

The angel of death is serving the ill and forgotten whilst deciding which deserves to stay amongst us. Lady Chastain introduces the audience to her pain, which we inhale and feel 'til the very end. Asomugha and Emmerich teamed up nicely. Hot boy proving he can investigate using his brain and Daddy Emmerich twitching the way I like. The cast didn't miss a beat, the story was tight, the procession, intriguing and the recapture well plated. Lord Redmayne spends a lot of the time hiding from view because that is how the angel of death would appear at work. Do a great job, kill them with kindness, keep history mum, don't be popular but make one sucker friend and kill up to a 1000 people. I couldn't believe that Redmayne would play a killer so controlled and unassuming until he outrants Ledger's Joker at the police station. I was inhaling Jessica's air when he punched me in the gut. Nice. 27-Oct-2022

A woman moving in with a man must turn the home into a dollhouse in order to make her feel like she owns it. She owns him as much as he thinks he owns her, but a toy is the only home she will ever get to own. The cast played it without pity, the story excelled as it moved, even though status has changed, emotions remain the same and Jane Fonda flexed some beautiful muscles. Freedom comes after you stop lying to yourself. A real Christmas story. 17-Oct-2022

The only way women can see the light is if they get punished for being women. The opener cues you in, the orphanage grants the characters humanity, the grown up versions are psychotic, the violence is pukey and the horror is inane. The more intimate the story, the bigger the chills. Here, the bigger the story, the more impossible it sounds. I do not get off on seeing women beat and suffering endlessly esp. for stupid reasons, but I realized that lesbians might. The film avoids sex as a respect to all women. Dude, I'd rather go back in time and get raped again than suffer through this. 17-Oct-2022

An artful relentless mess in which Lord Nicholas takes on religion and splits his asshole kicking its butt. 12-Oct-2022

Another depressed mother dooms a fabulous child into living a miserable life. De Armas is studied and emotionally frazzled but at times, she distracted me by resembling Lady Gaga. Details and relationships are scat as it relies heavily on an icon who shrinks into childhood oblivion whenever something goes wrong in her life. The film allows the woman little joy and constant paranoia. 28-Sep-2022

The mood is retro energized to soothe us into an 80's coma. There are three sexes applied to Bizarro Chalamet and I can't get over it. Daddy Rudd endured the right cosmetic procedure because he's yummy gay again except he was stupid, useless and shoed. The wall between the generations discouraged charisma amongst the replacements. There was a don't touch me vibe with babies helming a gimmick that keeps the franchise alive but old movie stars resentful. Why do possessed lizards change their outfits willy nilly but man has to suffer in shreds? The first half works because we presume the artist will add a great spin to propel the magic and replace original mistakes. He makes it more of the same. Reitman copies the spins with advanced tech but he doesn't sign off on it. 20-May-2022

When Almodovar embraces Hitchcockian ambience it is sublime but when he attempts a Spielbergian signature it deprives the film of a punch. Two mothers, both strangers share a common thread that conflicts with their lives. Even though the outcome is easy to determine, the presentation is a shivering buildup. Penelope Cruz maintains her hold until Almodovar gives up. Her mother doesn't crumble as the film's psychology implies. She wraps it up without a challenge. The ending is part Schindler's List and part Indiana Jones/Jurassic Park. I welcome a latin Spielberg inspiration with cheeky heroes and dinosaurs but I can't forgive a spanish mother that doesn't wreck. A spanish mother is the T-Rex of emotion. 23-Apr-2022

It's an incomplete thought. A woman realizes her culture by being left behind to be parented by a rich white family. The interracial harmony was a plus. The actors didn't make calls to their agents after every scene. They were in it. The idea that the man you loved was lying about his parents and abandons you to their care is frightening. The atmosphere was established, the actors were prepared but the story didn't succumb to its repression. All was safe, all felt long and none of it felt warranted. I wanted to hear the screams of agony and the main fucking the shit out of that pretty butler to get the fuck out of there. That's what real people do. They don't waste time wondering. 20-Apr-2022

The Batman is the only character that suits up. How lonely for him. He's always the freak. The support enact realistic iterations of characters that lit up Batman's mythology to absolutely no effect. The Riddler is a demented teen who was brought up by an unfunny father who worked the mines. The riddles were blah. There is no Riddler without a tight body suit, a tight body and demented cynicism. Daddy Farrell wasted a lot of time in makeup, creating art out of a role that doesn't belong. He is not penguin. I didn't see any top hats, monocles or bullet umbrellas. Michelle Pfeiffer's reign as the best film Catwoman cannot be extinguished. Zoe is an everyday gorgeous girl not a cat. Her cowl is just as cheap and unintelligible as I expected. Her lack of meow hurts. Commissioner Gordon was a lackey. Everything was eeeeewww and he was always waiting for Batman to finish things up for him. Daddy Turturro knew exactly what the director wanted and gave it to us. Alfred and Bruce's interaction was rude. The parental bond was cold. Why hire an Aunt Harriet if she's not going to be an Aunt Harriet? That might have been fun. Oops. Sorry. Fun not allowed. The Twins were cute. Robert Pattinson is the glue you want to stick to because he makes you ponder how his beautifully broken humanity can create life from something he hates. I saw love in Zoe's face when she looked at him. I saw panty dropping aloofness register from his. Batman's narration doesn't mesh with toxic revenge. The moments he celebrated were my cringe. This isn't Batman. He doesn't laud himself or others. He's a lonely motherfucker that hates the world because he lost mommy and daddy to crime and got stuck in a mansion with a pervy butler. Batman's detective work failed from a lack of gadget magic. Yeah! Rich angry fucks love gadgets. Matt Reeves strikes potent pictures but was entrapped by a franchise that is petrified of its origins. The man/woman who gives us comic book Batman with realistic choices will become King of The World. What's the point of hiding in the shadows if everyone can hear you? 18-Apr-2022