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| BITCHSLAP STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
32149 |
| Total Ratings: |
246789 |
| Total Reviews: |
28746 |
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| SUMMER OF SOUL (...OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) |
"An experience worth remembering."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED VIA INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL BOSTON 2021: "Summer of Soul" isn't quite a concert film, but it's hard to blame director Ahmir-Khalib "Questlove" Thompson for never wanting to stop the music: The raw material is a treasure trove of great performances not seen in fifty years, and more often than not, they say just as much on their own as anybody talking about them later might. The trick, which Questlove, editor Joshua L. Pearson, and the rest of the crew pull off nicely, is to insert just enough present-day reminiscences to give a little bit of context without slowing the party down." (more)
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| CLIFF WALKERS |
"Tough to tell whether this is a disappointing or extra-clever spy movie."
Jay Seaver says... ""Cliff Walkers" at times feels less like a movie and more like a TV series that has gone on a year too long, to the point where it has needed to switch in new cast members for departing stars, given audience favorites in small roles more to do, and kind of lost the main plot, all in just over two hours. That it's not actually stretched over two years keeps it from truly being a drag, at least, especially since filmmaker Zhang Yimou seldom puts in less than a full effort, even when you suspect he's doing a movie to get back in the good graces of the powers that be after doing something a little too controversial, to the point where it's easy to second-guess any disappointment." (more)
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| WRATH OF MAN |
"Vengeance is Mine"
alejandroariera says... "Guy Ritchie is one those directors that I am hot and cold about. Like many, I was blown away by his hyper clever, hyper violent feature debut “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998), even though I couldn’t make sense of at least 40% of the dialogue (it’s those damn cockney accents, you know). And then came “Snatch” (2000), which tried to be twice as clever and incomprehensible as his first feature (mumbling Brad Pitt in full Irish brogue included) and “Swept Away” (2002), his failed (and I am being nice here) remake of the Lina Wertmuller classic starring his then-companion Madonna. With just three films, Ritchie managed to jump the shark in an epic way. I pretty much skipped the work that followed until the release of the first of the two Sherlock Holmes movies he directed for Robert Downey, Jr. The less said about its take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s character the better, although I did like the second one: it was much closer to the spirit of the classic novels and stories, and it had in Jared Harris one of the best Moriarty’s to ever grace the bog and small screens. But then Ritchie decided to trample all over my childhood memories of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” by turning his remake into a damn origin story with no sense of what made the pairing of agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin so unique and charming and cool and fun. That was my last Guy Ritchie movie until today." (more)
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| HOME SWEET HOME |
"Mean, then messy."
Jay Seaver says... "The sheer amount of "wait, what?" at the back end of [I]Home Sweet Home[/I] isn't quite enough to fritter away all the nasty vibes and tension it starts with, but there's a short stretch where it seems to be trying its best. It winds up a case of twist overload, a movie whose makers don't seem to recognize that what's going on up front is far more exciting and resonant than what's hiding behind it as they pull the rug out from under the audience." (more)
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| TOUCH (2021) |
"Don't Forget To Drink Lots Of Water"
Erik Childress says... "American films, particularly remakes, often fall into the trap of trying to one-up its originals by providing more generic thrills or happy endings. The nuance of a more enriching study of culture or character falling victim to the more palatable devices of a screenwriter with no imagination – or too much. Well, sometimes that happens abroad too. Case in point – Aleksandra Szczepanowska’s Touch which she wrote, directed and stars in opens with the promise of something deeper, illuminating and even sensual and then falls down a wormhole into the days when Fatal Attraction reduxes were all the rage. Touch is all the more ironic in that the film begins with an exploration of identity and then has so much trouble finding one itself." (more)
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| MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) |
"Finish him."
Lybarger says... "Twenty-four years ago, I had to sit through the follow up to one of the few successful movies based on a video game. Like its predecessor, it lacked the grisly violence of the game, but it had nothing to offer that could replace it." (more)
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| MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) |
"You'll Be Screaming "Finish It!""
Peter Sobczynski says... "I suppose I should probably confess upfront that I harbor no particular nostalgia towards “Mortal Kombat” in either its video game or big screen incarnations from the 1990s. Regarding the former, I no doubt threw a few quarters into it while killing time waiting for a movie to begin but only if there wasn’t a better game available in the lobby—something like “Smash TV” or that “T2” adaptation. As for the movies, I vaguely recall seeing the original 1995 film, the first game-to-screen adaptation by Paul W.S. Anderson, the only thing I really remember about it was the bizarre decision to take a game that was primarily famous for its graphic and over-the-top violence and transform it into a blandly innocuous work that strained to achieve its PG-13 rating. As for 1997’s “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation,” even I had better things to do than sit through that one and nothing that I have seen or read about it over the years has caused me to question that particular life choice for even a second. Now, after years of rumors, false starts and legal issues, a new cinematic endeavor, cunningly entitled “Mortal Kombat,” is upon and if you are looking for a review that will explore in granular detail the ways in which it fits in with the franchise and its legacy, I would gently suggest that over the next couple of days, you should be able to easily find hundreds of reviews that will perform that task more effectively than I possibly could and you should probably look to them instead." (more)
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| IN THE EARTH |
"Ambition and atmosphere, at least."
Jay Seaver says... ""In the Earth" is simultaneously a movie that Ben Wheatley pulled together quickly as something he could make while folks were self-isolating - it was allegedly written and directed in two weeks - and something that must have been kicking around his head for a while, which leads to a certain tension. There's big ideas and times when the film either has too much or too little to do to get to the next leg, messy in a way you might expect from a film made under weird conditions." (more)
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FILMS I NEGLECTED TO REVIEW: HILLBILLY EULOGY
by Peter Sobczynski |
| "Please enjoy short reviews of "About Endlessness," "Above Suspicion," "Benny Loves You," Here Today," "Initiation," "The Paper Tigers," "The Water Man" and "Wrath of Man."" (more) |
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'OH MAN, THE SHIT PILED UP SO FAST IN VIETNAM YOU NEEDED WINGS TO STAY ABOVE IT.'
- Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now
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