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The Substance

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  • Title: The Substance
  • IMDb: link

Part body horror and part treatise on societal pressures of women over the age of 40, The Substance stars Demi Moore as a fading Hollywood celebrity now host of a morning exercise hour about to be replaced by the lecherous producer (Dennis Quaid). Learning of an experimental procedure where she might recapture her youth, Elisabeth (Moore) takes “the Substance” and emerges from the husk of her body as the distinctly different Sue (Margaret Qualley) whose beauty quickly reopens all the doors closed to her older self. However, in order for this miracle to work, Sue and Elisabeth share consciousness, each a week at a time when the other is unconscious with any negative or selfish action by one potentially hurting the other.

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Godzilla Minus One

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  • Title: Godzilla Minus One
  • IMDb: link

Going back to basics, 2023’s Godzilla Minus One returns the story of Godzilla to post World War II Japan with themes of post-war trauma, regret, and anti-war and anti- nuclear messages so prevalent in the original film. Our protagonist is Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) who encounters Godzilla at the end of WWII while flying as a kamikaze pilot who refused to crash his plane. Two years later, after cobbling together a family of other survivors, and working to remove leftover naval mines, Shikishima encounters Godzilla again. Centered around Shikishima’s guilt and cowardice, the return of Godzilla allows for a chance at redemption by becoming the suicide bomber he failed to be during the war.

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Unstoppable

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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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