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Movie Reviews

The Boy and the Heron Review

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The Boy and the Heron

  • Director: Hayao Miyazaki
  • Writer: Hayao Miyazaki
  • Japanese Voice Cast: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Yoshino Kimura, Ko Shibasaki, Kaoru Kobayashi, Jun Kunimura
  • English Voice Cast: Luca Padovan, Robert Pattinson, Gemma Chan, Christian Bale, Mark Hamill, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe, Dave Bautista

Grade: A

Over the course of his 40+ year career, animation master and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki has made some of the most transcendent films ever made, animated or otherwise. They’re films like My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away that have crossed oceans and cultures to remind audiences of what storytelling can be. They’re films that casual movie fans and diehard cinephiles alike can enjoy, and they provide a much-needed rebuke to the often predictable storytelling mechanisms of Western animation. His latest, and possibly last film, The Boy and the Heron, feels like the film that he’s been building towards his entire life, a culmination of a lifetime’s philosophy in a beautifully rendered package.

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Movie Reviews

Eileen Review

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Eileen

  • Director: William Oldroyd
  • Writer: Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel
  • Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Wigham, Marin Ireland

Grade: B

Eileen lives in a beige world. When she’s not staring out the window of the drab prison office where she’s employed as an office drone, curiously transfixed by the new inmate who murdered his father, or taking care of her alcoholic WWII vet father, she’s practically drowning in the grays and browns and mustard yellows of her 1960s seaside New England town. So when a pop of color arrives in the form of a noticeably red sedan that pulls into the prison parking lot, she’s instantly curious. But when she sees that the driver of the sedan is blonde bombshell Dr. Rebecca St. John, the prison’s new psychologist, she becomes so transfixed that she may never be the same.

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Movie Reviews

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Review

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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

  • Director: Francis Lawrence
  • Writer: Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt
  • Starring: Tom Blythe, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera

Grade: B+

The Hunger Games franchise was a major part of my childhood. I sat in the theater opening weekend for every film in the now decade-spanning series, from the very first The Hunger Games in 2012 to Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015. It was my gateway into franchise films, and I enjoy each movie in this series in its own way. That said, I was not excited to see The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. 

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TV Reviews

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Review

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

  • Creator: Chris Black
  • Starring: Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe
  • Eight episode season, five episodes watched for review

Grade: B-

Hey you! Yes, you! Do you like seeing giant monsters destroying things, wreaking havoc on everything they come across? Of course you do! Do you have at least a passing familiarity with Godzilla? Great! Do you like only seeing those monsters, including Godzilla, for a couple moments at a time, surrounded by many, many scenes of people talking about mildly interesting conspiracy theories? Have I got a show for you!

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TV Reviews

The Crown Season 6, “Aftermath” Review

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“Aftermath”

  • Creator: Peter Morgan
  • Starring: Imelda Staunton, Leslie Manville, Jonathan Pryce, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Olivia Williams, Salim Daw

Grade: B

Warning: Reviews of The Crown season 6 will contain spoilers.

To my recollection – and I’m willing to be corrected if necessary – The Crown has never dipped into supernatural matters. There may have been some moments of unnatural coincidence or fabrication, but nothing comes to mind that was as explicit as what we see in Aftermath. I suppose that now is as good a time as any, when two central figures have passed away. But is it necessary? Could the show have conveyed what the spirits of Diana and Dodi are communicating otherwise, without them making appearances beyond the grave?

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TV Reviews

The Crown Season 6, “Dis-Moi Oui” Review

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“Dis-Moi Oui”

  • Creator: Peter Morgan
  • Starring: Imelda Staunton, Leslie Manville, Jonathan Pryce, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Olivia Williams, Salim Daw

Grade: B-

Warning: Reviews of The Crown season 6 will contain spoilers.

Does The Crown need a villain? The early proceedings of each of these episodes in season 6 so far show that Peter Morgan is choosing to show Mohamed Fayed as the puppet master of Diana and Dodi’s fateful night in Paris. I said previously that I don’t necessarily have a problem with this, and generally like the Greek tragedy angle of the show in this regard, but I can’t deny the optics of the show’s only non-white characters being portrayed so negatively.

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TV Reviews

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review

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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Season 1

  • Creator: Bryan Lee O’Malley, BenDavid Grabinski
  • Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Brie Larson, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Allison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, Ellen Wong, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman
  • Eight episode season, eight episodes watched for review

Grade: A-

You may ask yourself, while sitting down to watch Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, why am I watching this? Why did this need to be made? You may recall that Edgar Wright directed the film adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic series in 2010, and was seen as a mild disappointment at the box office, but still garnered mostly positive reviews. You may also notice that the voices of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off are the same actors playing the same roles from the original film adaptation. You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. (Sorry.) So why make an animated series, when Wright injected so much energy and visual flair into a film that already felt like a live-action cartoon?

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Movie Reviews

Next Goal Wins Review

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Next Goal Wins

  • Director: Taika Waititi
  • Writer: Taika Waititi, Iain Morris
  • Starring: Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, Kaimana, Chris Alonso, Rhys Darby, Will Arnett, Taika Waititi

Grade: B

Next Goal Wins is the latest polarizing film from writer and director Taika Waititi. It stars Michael Fassbender, Elizabeth Moss, Kaimana and, as is often the case, Waititi himself. The film follows Thomas Rongen (Fassbender), a down-on-his-luck soccer coach, who takes a job to coach the American Samoa soccer team, the lowest-ranked team in the FIFA world rankings. 

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TV Reviews

The Crown Season 6, “Two Photographs” Review

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“Two Photographs”

  • Creator: Peter Morgan
  • Starring: Imelda Staunton, Leslie Manville, Jonathan Pryce, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Olivia Williams, Salim Daw

Grade: B+

Warning: Reviews of The Crown season 6 will contain spoilers.

What was it that killed Princess Diana? Yes, the official cause of death was a car accident, but there were so many contributing factors that seem insignificant at first. Conspiracy theories have swirled since 1997 about the myriad ways that the paparazzi, and even the royal family itself, were responsible, and Two Photographs provides enough evidence to make them all plausible.

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TV Reviews

The Crown Season 6, “Persona Non Grata” Review

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“Persona Non Grata”

  • Creator: Peter Morgan
  • Starring: Imelda Staunton, Leslie Manville, Jonathan Pryce, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Olivia Williams, Salim Daw

Grade: B+

Warning: Reviews of The Crown season 6 will contain spoilers.

“Seems like another lifetime.” “And if it were yesterday, too.” This exchange comes early on in Persona Non Grata, the season premiere of The Crown, Netflix’s last gasp at prestige television. It occurs between Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) and Prince Charles (Dominic West), as he espouses the fond memories he had of the precious few moments he had with his mother in his youth, but it doubles as a cheekily meta jab from series creator Peter Morgan. Theoretically, you could start The Crown from the beginning when each of these characters were decades younger – and played by entirely different actors – and, a day or two later, watch this very episode.

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