Sisu is a 2022 historical action film written and directed by Jalmari Helander. Set in Finnish Lapland during World War II, the film follows a gold prospector who attempts to secure his stolen gold and defend himself from a Nazi death squad led by a brutal Schutzstaffel officer. The film stars Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan and Mimosa Willamo. (Wikipedia)
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Discontinued is a 2022 indie scifi drama directed by Trevor Packham from a story written by Packham and Michael Villucci. The movie stars Ashley Hutchinson, Langton Fishburne, Robert Picardo, Michael Bonini and Charlie Talbert. The story is about a depressed millennial who discovers that the world she knows is just a simulated version of reality that is being shut down. Suddenly, she’s the only one who wants to stick around.
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Seven Days (Chinese: 七天) is a 2023 Singaporean supernatural drama film written and directed by Grace Wu in her directorial debut. The film revolves around a female ghost who incidentally took a chance to possess her younger brother’s body for seven days to resolve unsettled matters with her family. The film opens in Singapore cinemas from May 12th, 2023.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a 2023 American fantasy heist comedy film directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Gilio from a story by Chris McKay and Gilio. Based on the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, it is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and has no connections to the previous film trilogy released between 2000 and 2012. The film stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant. (Wikipedia)
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a 2023 American science fiction space opera film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy, produced by Marvel Studios, and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the third and final installment in the Guardians of the Galaxy film trilogy, the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), and the 32nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is written and directed by James Gunn and stars an ensemble cast featuring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, and Sylvester Stallone. (Wikipedia)
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Renfield is a 2023 American comedy horror film directed and produced by Chris McKay, and written by Ryan Ridley from a story by Robert Kirkman, who also served as producer. Inspired by characters from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, the film stars Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Adrian Martinez, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Nicolas Cage.
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Plot logic and suspension of disbelief are related concepts but they are not the same thing. What’s the difference?
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Suspension of disbelief is a concept used to describe a willingness or ability to temporarily set aside one’s skepticism or critical judgment in order to fully engage with a work of fiction. In other words, it is the act of allowing oneself to be absorbed by the story or the world created by the author, even if it contains elements that are not realistic or plausible in the real world.
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The Lord of the Rings trilogy is an epic fantasy movie drama series directed by Peter Jackson, based on the classic J.R.R. Tolkien novels viz. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and Return of the King. The trilogy was released from 2001 – 2003 and was critically acclaimed and a smash hit at the box office (almost $3 billion), with the final movie sweeping the Academy Awards in 2004.
With the prequel series, The Rings of Power being – like most modern-day adaptations – highly divisive, it is probably instructional to analyse the reasons why The Lord of the Rings trilogy works in a way that seems to have eluded the folks behind The Rings of Power series. Thus, although almost everybody in the civilised world has probably seen these films, a spoiler warning is still necessary.
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The Black Phone is a 2021 American supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, who both produced with Jason Blum. It is an adaptation of the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill.
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness grossed $480 million worldwide in the first week of its release. No argument about the movie being a massive commercial success already but what about its merits? Is the movie a worthy addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)? This is exactly what we will discuss in this movie analysis.
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The Batman movie analysis is our breakdown of the latest franchise reboot of DC Comics’ most valued intellectual property. Obviously The Batman movie analysis will contain spoilers so… if you are looking for a review of The Batman without spoilers, please click on this link. As always, we will analyse the movie based on the following story elements: plot, characters and themes.
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Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese director who has made several critically acclaimed award-winning films, the most successful of which is of course Drive My Car, nominated for this year’s Academy Awards viz. Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Having reviewed Drive My Car already, we wanted to analyse three other features, together with a short, that defined the work of Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
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The Hand is a 1981 American psychological horror film written and directed by Oliver Stone, based on the novel The Lizard’s Tail by Marc Brandel. The film stars Michael Caine as Jon Lansdale, a comic book artist who loses his hand, which in turn takes on a murderous life of its own.
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John Wick is a 2014 American neo-noir action-thriller drama film directed by Chad Stahelski, in his directorial debut, and written by Derek Kolstad. The movie was a commercial success, spawning two sequels and perhaps inspiring a new ultraviolet action sub-genre. Certainly, John Wick revitalised the career of Keanu Reeves to such an extent that Matrix 4 was surely made on the back of his renewed popularity.
Supernova is a 2020 British drama film written and directed by Harry Macqueen. The film stars Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci. The premise of Supernova is fairly depressing as Firth and Tucci play a gay couple, Sam and Tusker, respectively. Tusker was diagnosed with dementia two years before and the couple take a road trip in their old RV before Tusker loses his memories and sense of self.
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The Reader is a 2008 historical drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by David Hare, based on the 1995 German novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink. The movie starred Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes and was nominated for several other major awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. However, the story does not really stand up to scrutiny as we will endeavour to explain in our following analysis.
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