Category: Features
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Sisu (2022)
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Read more: Sisu (2022)“Sisu” – Silence is golden. Aatami (Jorma Tommila), the main character in Sisu, has two lines of dialogue in the film’s entire ninety-minute runtime. Both of them occur at the film’s end and neither of them define the word sisu. According to another character, Aino (Mimosa Willamo), sisu is a Finnish concept that cannot be…
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80’s Action Is No Laughing Matter: Part 2
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Read more: 80’s Action Is No Laughing Matter: Part 2Chuck Norris in Firewalker Loathed by the critics, Chuck’s first shot at comedy in 1986 was a box-office dud that helped finish off his benefactor Cannon Films. Good work, son. Plusses: I couldn’t really follow the premise, but we end up with two adventurers and a pretty bird trying to find buried treasure in Central…
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80’s Action Is No Laughing Matter: Part One
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Read more: 80’s Action Is No Laughing Matter: Part OneYou’ve heard the sayings. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Variety is the spice of life. A change is as good as a rest. And so on. Well, for most actors it’s straightforward to enjoy a wide range of roles, but action stars do have a tendency to plough the same bullet-ridden furrow.…
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Quasi
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Read more: QuasiComedy troupe Broken Lizard has been trying to recapture the magic of their one legitimate hit – Super Troopers – for twenty-two years and five movies. Hoping the sixth time is a charm, they bring us Quasi. As in Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame. And they bring it to us via Hulu. That’s just…
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The Last Hurrah #4: Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974)
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Read more: The Last Hurrah #4: Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974)“My grandfather’s work was doo-doo! I am not interested in death! The only thing that concerns me is the preservation of life!” Mel Brooks’ 2021 autobiography All About Me! is an irritating, surprisingly poor read. It’s lame, politically correct, bland and devoid of interesting anecdotes. I don’t think there’s one word of criticism aimed at…
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The Last Hurrah #3: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008)
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Read more: The Last Hurrah #3: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008)Oh Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey! Was the elfin Toni Basil singing about Mickey Rourke, handsome, talented bastard that he was? Probably not, but after his terrifically understated performance in the 1981 classic Body Heat as a reluctant advice-giving arsonist I guess it’s possible. At that point…
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Renfield
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Read more: Renfield“Renfield” – All bite and no bark. Six years ago, Universal Studios attempted to start a franchise called Dark Universe that was supposed to feature a bunch of classic horror characters. The first movie, The Mummy, did exactly what I predicted it would do. Namely, it crushed the franchise in its infancy. With the Dark…
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The Shining
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Read more: The ShiningA hotel, bathed in blood, wrapped in a puzzle and stuffed up the keister of an enigma, The Shining relays the less-than-straightforward tale of a psychic boy helplessly trapped in a quagmire of perverted demons and murdered guests all wanting a fresh bite of whomever took the job of winter caretaker. That would be Jack…
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The Last Hurrah #2: James Caan in Misery (1990)
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Read more: The Last Hurrah #2: James Caan in Misery (1990)Caan did much better than a lot of actors, but his lengthy career still manages to give off a whiff of disappointment. There was never any doubt about his ability, typified by an early performance as a brain-damaged ex-ball player in 1969’s The Rain People. Here he’s very good at doing what he can with…
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The Last Hurrah #1: Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979)
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Read more: The Last Hurrah #1: Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979)It’s always a mystery when a gargantuan talent falls off a cliff. How can an auteur like Coppola, a man who ruled the cinematic landscape of the seventies by combining searing art with the most fantastic consistency, fail to make another great movie after 1979? A mesmerizing gift can’t just evaporate, can it? I mean,…