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Unstoppable

  • Title: Unstoppable
  • IMDb: link

Unstoppable is your typical by-the-numbers sports biopic underdog story that succeeds in what it sets out to do. Jharrel Jerome stars as Anthony Robles, a one-legged student athlete who through the first-hour of the movie struggles to make his dream of wrestling for a major college program a reality. If this wasn’t a true story, Disney would likely have made something quite like it (albeit perhaps with less of the family drama).

The film is filled with struggles for Anthony to overcome including an abusive step-father (Bobby Cannavale), money troubles, not being recruited by the big schools, and finally making the team as a walk-on only to see the wrestling program cut because of lack of funding. Strap in, because it’s going to be a Sisyphean struggle for this kid to live his dream.

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We Live in Time

  • Title: We Live in Time
  • IMDb: link

We Live in Time is a bit of a throwback, a solid film that shows the formula of throwing together two extremely likable stars and giving them a stage to perform is still a formula for success. For our pairing we get Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh as Tobias and Almut. The film jumps around in non-linear fashion to delve into the pair’s relationship from their cinematic meet-cute (where she literally runs into him with his car) through the ups and downs of their relationship over the years.

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Canary Black

  • Title: Canary Black
  • IMDb: link

Even for a throwaway action flick, Canary Black stretches any attempt at credibility. Our plot involves Kate Beckinsale as super-spy Avery Graves whose husband (Rupert Friend) is kidnapped. Avery is then blackmailed into stealing a file so secret not even the President of the United States knows what it is. Knowledge isn’t a problem for our baddie (Goran Kostić), however, who apparently knows everything about everyone including having access to all kinds of CIA classified records such as Avery’s psych profile.

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Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

  • Title: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
  • IMDb: link

Widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, the low-budget Santa Claus Conquers the Martians features a story about Martians kidnapping Santa Claus (John Call), and two American children (Victor Stiles and Donna Conforti), to Mars to instill the spirit of Christmas and wonder in their own children. Just about as wacky as it sounds, the story also takes a turn when one of the Martian (Vincent Beck) soldiers, disagreeing with this plan to sully Martian society with Earth nonsense, repeatedly attempts to sabotage the endeavor and murder Santa and the children.

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Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

  • Title: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
  • IMDb: link

Director Johan Grimonprez‘s film is an unusually structured documentary blending music, soundbites, interviews, archival footage, and narration from different sources to examine jazz, decolonization, subversion, autonomy, political assassination, and Cold War clashing ideologies all through the lens of the murder of prime minister Patrice Lumumba of the newly independent Congo which was unwittingly aided by Louis Armstrong in his role as an ambassador to Africa.

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