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Despite being afflicted with some common tropes of the horror genre, Sean Ellis’ The Cursed (which had the less generic title Eight for Silver when it premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival) is imbued with its own brand of originality. Ell...

The similarities between Daddy’s Home 2 and last week’s release, A Bad Moms Christmas, are striking. Not only are the two films sequels to successful first installments but they follow the similar template of bringing back the most popular...

What propels filmmakers to make a sequel to a 20-year old film? Is it nostalgia for the brand of comedy that characterized the original? Is it desperation on everyone's part to revive flagging careers? Or is it Hollywood's acceptance that recogniz...

Eddie the Eagle is a classic “underdog overachieves” sports story complete with all the trappings. It’s the kind of film that pulls out all the stops to get an applauding audience to its feet. Terms like “feel good” and “upbeat” apply. ...

Despite embracing the tropes one associates with the Western, Michael Matthews’ Five Fingers of Marseilles transpires in an atypical locale: post-Colonial South Africa. Matthews reaffirms what Sergio Leone identified – the Western doesn’...

Despite a seemingly straightforward slice-of-life storyline, The Florida Project achieves something rare and magical: presenting existence from the perspective of a young child while, at the same time, providing enough “clues” that viewers...

For those steeped in the lore of what Friday the 13th would become, watching the first movie can be a little surprising. Many of the long-running series' staples are either absent or toned down from where they would evolve. The gore is surprising...

Getaway is pretty much a 90-minute car chase. That's it. It may rival The Blues Brothers for the most vehicular wreckage in a motion picture. (Is that still the gold standard or has it been surpassed?) That said, however, consider how easy it is fo...

When considering the meaning of the title Good Time, I was reminded of Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” In the case of these characters, the former doesn’t apply. Good Time is an atmosphere-driven thrille...

The Great Buck Howard offers John Malkovich an opportunity to do a little mugging for the camera as he plays a character who is, by nature, larger than life. Buck Howard, a fictional representation of The Amazing Kreskin, is part star and part lou...