Movie Review: Avatar: The Way of Water

Movie Review: Avatar: The Way of Water

  It has been thirteen years since the last time we visited the world of Pandora, but James Cameron takes us back in Avatar: The Way of Water, the long-awaited sequel that was well worth the wait. Don’t remember what happened in the first Avatar? That’s fine. Cameron starts the film off with a juxtaposition-heavy introduction highlighting what happened in the first film and what our characters are up to. Following their victory against the…

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Movie Review: Empire of Light

Movie Review: Empire of Light

  Every year around this time, we tend to get movies that feel geared toward the Oscars and awards season. Prestige pictures featuring award-winning directors, actors, writers, and crew members telling a story that feels dramatic or important all for the sake of winning awards. While some of these movies see success at the Oscars, many have failed, whether it be a lack of or zero nominations, a failed box office, a low critical reception,…

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Movie Review: TÁR

Movie Review: TÁR

  Todd Field’s TÁR, the director’s first film since 2006’s Little Children, begins unlike any movie I have seen in 2022 and maybe ever. The credits roll, but they feel like the closing credits. Set to a backdrop with no music, we see the credits of everyone who worked on the film, from the stars to the craft services team. It almost felt like the film was playing backward or someone in the projection booth…

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Movie Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Movie Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

  Daniel Craig returns as the world’s greatest detective Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson’s sequel to his 2019 murder mystery that is even bigger and wilder than the first film. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Blanc is struggling. He is bored out of his mind and spends most of his days sitting in a bathtub reading or playing online video games waiting for his next great case….

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Movie Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Movie Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a movie that looks at the importance of a legacy. It looks at the legacy of the characters in the film and how important they are to their nations and the people of their nations. It looks at the legacy of its actors and how significant they are or were to the franchise and to the film community. And it looks at the legacy of the film and its…

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2022 Chicago International Film Festival Movie Review: The Banshees of Inisherin

2022 Chicago International Film Festival Movie Review: The Banshees of Inisherin

In Martin McDonagh’s latest film, The Banshees of Inisherin, Collin Ferrell plays Pádraic, a cow farmer who lives with his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) on Inisherin, a fictional small island off the coast of Ireland. Pádraic is a nice man. A man who goes about his days like clockwork. He works with his cows, delivers milk to the local grocer, and goes and meets his best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) at the local pub for…

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Movie Review: Amsterdam

Movie Review: Amsterdam

  There is no denying David O. Russell’s success in the 2010s. Throughout that decade, Russell made four films, The Fighter in 2010, Silver Linings Playbook in 2012, American Hustle in 2013, and Joy in 2015. Each of these films grossed over $100 million at the worldwide box office and garnered tons of awards attention. All four films combined earned 26 Oscar nominations, three of them for Best Picture, five of them for Russell’s directing…

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Best of the 2022 Chicago International Film Festival

Best of the 2022 Chicago International Film Festival

The 2022 Chicago International Film Festival has officially come to a close and what a great festival it was this year. Throughout this year’s festival, I saw twenty-one movies, twenty of them being 2022 films and one being an anniversary screening of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was just as amazing as you’d think. Of the twenty new films I saw, there was not one movie that I would consider “bad”. There were some I wasn’t…

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2022 Chicago International Film Festival Movie Review: Runner

2022 Chicago International Film Festival Movie Review: Runner

  While watching Runner, I could not believe that this was the feature-length directorial debut of director Marian Mathias. There is such control and visual understanding in every aspect of Runner that you usually don’t see from someone with only one feature film under their belt. While the story didn’t fully work for me, I was in complete awe of everything I was seeing on screen. Runner followers Haas (Hannah Schiller), a soft-spoken 18-year-old living…

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2022 Chicago International Film Festival Review: A Wounded Fawn

2022 Chicago International Film Festival Review: A Wounded Fawn

  Travis Stevens’ A Wounded Fawn would make a perfect double feature with another 2022 horror movie, Fresh, with the theme of the two films being “don’t go to a house in the woods with a man you just met”. While the two films have a similar creepy setup to them, they are both very different movies. Fresh was a straightforward gross-out cannibal story, A Wounded Fawn is a little more complicated than that. Stevens…

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