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The Passion of the Christ
(2004)
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Sean Axmaker
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It is perhaps testament to the material that the film can be read both as a literal illustration of the story of Christ’s suffering at the hands of the Romans... an anti-authoritarian tract that questions the very assumptions of guilt and blame...
Posted May 06, 2023
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The War of the Worlds
(1953)
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Sean Axmaker
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... the original big screen adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic is an impressive Technicolor disaster film with Oscar winning special effects and a memorable visualization of the Martian invaders...
Posted Jun 25, 2022
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Lime Kiln Club Field Day
(1913)
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Sean Axmaker
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Apart from its entertainment value (and even unfinished it is fun), it is a significant piece of cinematic, cultural, and social archaeology.
Posted Oct 17, 2019
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The Lovers on the Bridge
(1991)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a lush cinematic painting of love, passion, and madness expressed in a romantic surrealist style and images charges with color and magic.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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The Killer Elite
(1975)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's right in tune with the cinema of paranoia and conspiracy that bloomed in the seventies while also jumping on the martial arts craze with Caan taking on ninja warriors ...
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Summer Lovers
(1982)
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Sean Axmaker
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... not your usual eighties sex romp.... takes an adult look at love, sex, and modern romance in the uninhibited world of the Greek islands.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Marketa Lazarová
(1968)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a film of primal imagery, poetic filmmaking, and ephemeral storytelling that looks hewn out of the stone and wood and the very earth of the ground beneath it.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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The American Friend
(1977)
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Sean Axmaker
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The cool, cunning sociopath of Highsmith's novel becomes a restless international hustler, selling art forgeries and brokering deals (some of which may actually be legal) while travelling back and forth through Germany, France, and the United States.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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What Have You Done to Solange?
(1972)
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Sean Axmaker
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... one of the masterpieces of giallo, the distinctive Italian take on horror that combines a poetic, haunting beauty with Grand Guignol gore and a bent of sexual perversity. It's also one of the most disturbing entries in the genre...
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
(1974)
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Sean Axmaker
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... hasn't the credentials of 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The French Connection' but this ingenious crime caper / hostage drama is one of the great New York crime films of the 1970s.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Free Enterprise
(1998)
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Sean Axmaker
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William Shatner plays William Shatner as a vulnerable, vainglorious ham, a sad clown who gets along with everybody but strikes out in romance, drinks to excess and spins his fantasy projects with hope against hopelessness...
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Disorder
(2015)
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Sean Axmaker
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The disorder of the title isn't limited to Vincent's PTSD and alienation. His entire world is wired into violence and instability.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Neruda
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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Call it LarraÃn's Citizen Kane, the story of a man's life as understood through the stories surround him and the power that such stories and perceptions have.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Deluge
(1933)
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Sean Axmaker
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Deluge is pre-code and made outside the studio system (distributed by RKO), which gives the creators a little more freedom to imagine life after the fall in terms a studio would resist.
Posted Mar 16, 2017
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The Front Page
(1931)
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Sean Axmaker
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Is this the stuff of comedy? It is in the hands of Hecht and MacArthur, former newspapermen with plenty to say about the cutthroat tactics of journalists.
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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The Swindle
(1997)
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Sean Axmaker
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It takes too long to get started and the playful coda is far too precious, but Chabrol builds to a vice-grip tension as small timers face the terror of big time killers...
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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Hell
(1994)
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Sean Axmaker
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[Claude] Chabrol injects [Henri-George] Clouzot's dark, misanthropic tale with a soupon of Hitchcock's voyeuristic obsessions and with his own empathy for the tormented husband.
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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Betty
(1992)
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Sean Axmaker
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Neither mystery nor crime thriller, Betty is a psychological drama in two halves...
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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In the Mood for Love
(2000)
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Sean Axmaker
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There may be no more sensual director in the world than Hong Kong's Wong Kar-Wai, and In the Mood for Love is one of his richest and most melancholy works, a shadow dance of would-be lovers sketched in suggestions and intimations.
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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Doctor Strange
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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Doctor Strange has all the strengths of a Marvel movie-a well-told story, a well-tuned sense of humor about itself, a personal drama to shape the hero's journey-as well as all the weaknesses (conventions of a superhero origin tale are getting repetitive).
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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Il Poliziotto E Marcio
(1976)
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Sean Axmaker
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The brutal business of mob enforcement is executed with unflinching directness. They don't simply take care of an inconvenient witness, they complete the job by taking out the man's beloved cat with the same weapon.
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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Kidnap Syndicate
(1976)
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Sean Axmaker
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One of di Leo's greatest strengths is his fascination with and focus on process and detail, and one of the pleasures of his mob movies is the detail with which he observes the execution of everything from a payoff to an assassination.
Posted Mar 10, 2017
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Ixcanul
(2015)
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Sean Axmaker
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The feature debut of Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante is a beautiful and unsentimental portrait of traditional Mayan culture where peasants live in huts without electricity or running water ...
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Fatima
(2015)
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Sean Axmaker
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Philippe Faucon's compassionate drama of an Algerian émigré in Lyon, based on the memoirs of Fatima Elayoubi, stars Soria Zeroual as Fatima, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters, working multiple jobs as a cleaner to give her girls a better life.
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Night Will Fall
(2014)
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Sean Axmaker
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... Alfred Hitchcock himself was drafted to shape the footage into a documentary that would play for audiences on both sides of the war. It was never completed.
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Frailty
(2001)
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Sean Axmaker
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... marvelously off-balance and under-the-skin creepy from the first few minutes.
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Shotgun Stories
(2007)
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Sean Axmaker
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Nichols' original take on classic themes of vengeance and retribution is dropped into a world of real people struggling with the real problems of making a living, taking responsibility for families and dealing with the betrayals of the past.
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Jackie
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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The emotions are muted, suggested in gestures and details, as is the drama. Jackie doesn't deliver the catharsis you might expect from the subject matter. It's more interested in the nuances of character...
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Call of Heroes
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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This is real old school action drama, the kind of Hong Kong movie that wears its heart on its sleeve and tends to wave it around with utterly sincere speeches about justice and duty.
Posted Mar 09, 2017
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Kill and Pray
(1967)
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Sean Axmaker
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Thanks to the power of spaghetti western conventions, you don't need to know the history to get the message, and you don't need to embrace the message to appreciate the brutal justice.
Posted Feb 15, 2017
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Long Way North
(2015)
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Sean Axmaker
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This is traditional hand-drawn animation with an unconventional visual style, less drawn than painted with big, bold fields of color and details suggested in splashes of shadow or small, simple lines.
Posted Feb 15, 2017
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My Beloved Bodyguard
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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This is a classic Hong Kong marriage of weepy melodrama and brutal, bone-crunching action, and there's a touching sweetness and tragedy to the story of the quiet, reclusive old man, a career soldier now abandoned by family and by his very mind.
Posted Feb 15, 2017
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Magic Mike
(2012)
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Sean Axmaker
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Matthew McConaughey uses the drawling, at times oily charm to play a low-rent impresario determined to move his weekend enterprise into prime-time Miami and he's superb, and yet it's Tatum who impresses here.
Posted Feb 14, 2017
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Dirty Gertie From Harlem U.S.A.
(1946)
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Sean Axmaker
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Gertie gave [Francine Everett] the opportunity to play a glamorous, sexy black woman never seen in Hollywood pictures.
Posted Feb 14, 2017
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Blood of Jesus
(1941)
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Sean Axmaker
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... an allegorical drama that follows a woman's spiritual odyssey as hovers at the brink of dead... a classic meeting of morality play and folk tale...
Posted Feb 14, 2017
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I Wake Up Screaming
(1941)
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Sean Axmaker
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... not just one of the great movie titles of classic cinema, it is one of the films that established the distinctive style and attitude of film noir...
Posted Jan 28, 2017
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Cry of the City
(1948)
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Sean Axmaker
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The urban atmosphere of city traffic and the scuffed and worn authenticity of real storefronts and sidewalks gives the film a charge of realism but Siodmak forgoes docurealism for his beloved expressionist style.
Posted Jan 28, 2017
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Boomerang!
(1947)
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Sean Axmaker
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... Kazan avoids the usual theatrics as Andrews, who loosens up a little under Kazan's direction, methodically works his way through his case with a modesty rare even in today's spate of TV legal dramas. It's more film gray than noir...
Posted Jan 28, 2017
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Moby Dick
(1956)
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Sean Axmaker
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[T]he film was not well received in 1956, much of the criticism leveled at Peck, but his stylized performance is more interesting 60 years later. Huston's treatment is equally compelling.
Posted Jan 27, 2017
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I Want to Live!
(1958)
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Sean Axmaker
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... intelligent, adult, and unflinching, making a powerful case against capital punishment while delivering a riveting drama.
Posted Jan 27, 2017
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The Handmaiden
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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... has the look of a lavish period drama, the elegance of an arthouse film, the complex plotting of an ingenious caper that only the movies could sustain, and the sex of a classy softcore picture.
Posted Jan 27, 2017
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An American Werewolf in London
(1981)
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Sean Axmaker
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John Landis teaches us two things in An American Werewolf in London (1981): turning into a werewolf is a very painful process, and the dead are boring!
Posted Jan 26, 2017
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Dog Eat Dog
(2016)
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Sean Axmaker
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This is a nihilistic film about nasty folks on a self-destructive path, a little too familiar by now but still more interesting than your usual crime-gone-bad films ...
Posted Jan 26, 2017
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Roger Corman's Death Race 2050
(2017)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's not necessarily a "good" movie-it's ragged and choppy and scattershot, with broad, cartoonish gags and easy jabs over pointed satire-but it's also fun, unpretentious, cheeky, energetic, gleefully trashy, and filled with junky spectacle.
Posted Jan 17, 2017
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A Touch of Zen
(1971)
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Sean Axmaker
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King Hu's romantic chivalry adventure is a masterpiece of Chinese cinema, a magnificent epic with grand battles fought with the grace of a ballet with swords, and the most significant cinematic inspiration for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Posted Jan 13, 2017
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Punch-Drunk Love
(2002)
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Sean Axmaker
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... weird in all the best ways, a film of unexpected bounces and unusual shadings.
Posted Jan 13, 2017
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Iron Man
(2008)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's faithful to the comic origins without being slavish, draws ideas from the entire run of the series, and stirs a self-aware sense of humor through the action while still taking the enterprise seriously.
Posted Jan 13, 2017
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Annie Hall
(1977)
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Sean Axmaker
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Allen tosses out the usual romantic comedy conventions for his own brand of humor, but under the gags and self-effacing jokes is the portrait of two people who fall in love and then... fall out of love.
Posted Jan 13, 2017
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Hellboy
(2004)
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Sean Axmaker
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Ron Perlman, performing under a massive ember-red suit... is perfect as the cigar-puffing, wisecracking, kitten-loving demon who covertly battles supernatural monsters.
Posted Jan 13, 2017
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The Day the Earth Stood Still
(1951)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's as much Christ parable as science fiction film... yet its message is delivered less like a sermon than a threat.
Posted Jan 13, 2017
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