INDYATMN
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| 59 10% | Spawn (1997) - Oct 20, 2019
"Although most of his jokes aren't funny the Violator's Bugs Bunny-like presence makes this mostly painless. Still, the direction & script (characters speak in overt exposition) are very bad & the efx awful. The comic was badly written too but at least it looked great. No doubt this is partly a result of budget (stunts include alot of throwing people around & Spawn uses machine guns & a motorcycle) but also probably bc McFarlane believed he could do everything his way & hired cheap amateurs."
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| 70 25% | Hustlers (2019) - Oct 19, 2019
"Other than its distracting PC "wokeness" (I'll buy that THE swankiest NYC club can find a spot for a middle-aged JLo, but monied execs are into this much diversity & fat chicks? No), I'm not sure why critics are buzzing over something so predictable. It does feel honest when characters rail against Wall Streeters getting away w/ (legal) scams of their own, but not when it suggests that drugging people & robbing them is just like being a CEO or romanticizes these sharks or their "sisterhood". "
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| 61 14% | She-Wolf of London (1946) - Oct 14, 2019
"The performances & the direction aren't bad, but the script is awful, especially because it's not what it's supposed to be, which is a Universal werewolf movie (it's included in the collection). It's not actually a monster film but even as an ostensible mystery thriller, it's a giant snooze. There's not much worse than knowing who the killer is well before you're supposed to, unless it's a film where the protagonist spends most of the film in bed & so little happens on screen it could be a play"
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| 83 62% | Madam Satan (1930) - Oct 12, 2019
"Feminists will disapprove but old films w/ storylines essentially no longer allowed to be made are inherently interesting. A comedy about a wife fighting for an entitled philandering jerk fits the bill. Surprisingly, some of the jokes still work. It's also about the Madonna/whore complex many men have to deal w/ &, like a French film, doesn't assume a man's horrible for feeling this way. It ends w/ a crashing spectacle & efx that must've been dazzling at the time & helped build Demille's rep"
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| 84 66% | The Devil Rides Out (1968) - Oct 11, 2019
"Despite a glaring contrivance when it comes to the potential victims (why do they just go along w/ Lee's rescue mid-film?) & the hero overdoing his "Stop! Don't!" instructions in the 2nd half, there's some good stuff here. Matheson gets things moving immediately & keeps it that way w/ early moments that feel almost like an Indiana Jones film. A scene w/ the heroes inside a protective circle is genuinely suspenseful as you wonder who'll break first & there's an effectively creepy demon & devil "
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| 83 62% | Cat People (1942) - Oct 11, 2019
"Being a product of its time (the instant romance, the now cliche way the animals react) makes the praise on this seem overdone, but it is impressive how the filmmakers manage to deliver a mostly intriguing & increasingly compelling mystery about a woman who can turn into a panther with no special efx whatsoever. The last 20 minutes are riveting as the ostensible heroes suddenly seem a little horrible given the power they have over the lead & you can't help rooting for the ostensible "monster". "
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| 69 23% | Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) - Oct 06, 2019
"The Mummy story is way better than the 2 that follow & the wraparound story. It has some solid actors in it & the narrative is thoroughly unpredictable. Unfortunately none of the other stories offer any surprises at all & the Cat tale & wraparound suffer from having punk musicians in starring roles which is distracting even when they can act. The Cat tale & the Goblin tale also don't have the cash to pull off solid efx, unlike the Mummy tale which is always shot to enhance shadows & suspense."
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| 89 82% | Joker (2019) - Oct 04, 2019
"There are brief moments in the first half where Arthur's downward spiral starts to feel one-note & mediocre but it never lasts for long. The 2 biggest reasons are Phoenix's riveting performance & the fantastic score. Phillips also touches on a societal trait most mediums never question: how a hatred of the rich is routinely accepted & indulged (often by artists themselves). It also somehow raises serious issues about mental illness w/out ever diminishing the Joker's view of madness as freeing."
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| 55 8% | Jungle Woman (1944) - Oct 02, 2019
"I'd like to give this the benefit of the doubt & assume had I seen the movie that preceded it I would have liked this better, but I can't. This is awful. Slightly more than an hour long I still had to FF. The structure is bad (everyone takes turns to recount their parts of a "mystery" that isn't a mystery to the viewer at all), & the editing sloppy (there's an impressive lion tamer but he rarely stays on screen long). It's only slightly interesting if one views it as having a "racist" subtext. "
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| 61 14% | Screaming Mimi (1958) - Sep 27, 2019
"The only reason this isn't a complete failure is because it was obviously meant to exploit Ekberg's looks &, despite a now woefully unimpressive dance routine (that it makes us watch twice), it manages to at least accomplish that. The idea of a psychiatrist sneaking his hot client out of the asylum isn't a bad start to a film noir story either. But the wrap up to the mystery is so nonsensical & unsatisfying, the hardest thing to believe is that this script was based on a published book. "
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