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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

  • Title: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
  • IMDb: link

Mad Max: Fury Road was one of the most kinetic, edge-of-your-seat, visually bonkers popcorn movies of the past decade. Exploring the origins of the film’s breakout star (played in Fury Road by Charlize Theron), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is… largely fine. More structured, less zany, and with far fewer surprises, Furiosa still provides plenty of crazy stunts and action against the backdrop of the dystopian world, and Anya Taylor-Joy, taking over the Furiosa role, proves she can carry a film with minimal dialogue.

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Saturday Night

  • Title: Saturday Night
  • IMDb: link

Director Jason Reitman, who co-wrote the script with Gil Kenan, offers a witty, fast-paced, love letter to the rocky beginnings of a modern comedic touchtone by going behind the scenes in the hours just before the first live performance of Saturday Night Live. With two hours until air, we follow Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) around the chaotic setting of Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The film plays up tensions at NBC at the time between the network and Johnny Carson which allowed for the show’s creation even if, as the film suggests, no one at NBC expected Saturday Night to ever make it to air.

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Emilia Pérez

  • Title: Emilia Pérez
  • IMDb: link

Not all of Emilia Pérez works. The film is a home run hitter swinging for the fences at every at bat. Sometimes it knocks a scene out of the park. Sometimes it strikes out on three pitches, all well outside of the strike zone. It’s a musical featuring mostly conversational songs which occasionally are unexpectedly bolstered by a full choir. It’s a story about transition and change but is highlighted by characters falling back into bad habits which question how much people actually change. And it’s a tale of characters struggling with real emotional turmoil in a plot that is more interested in melodrama.

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Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

  • Title: Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas
  • IMDb: link

Released in 1977, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas introduced us to the struggling family of Emmet (Jerry Nelson) and his mother Alice (Marilyn Sokol) who have been scraping by since the death of Emmet’s father. As Christmas rolls around both struggle to get the other a gift. Each separately latches on to the idea of earning money by winning the local talent contest. However, to meet the needs of the show, each must trade the other’s prized possession with Alice hocking Emmet’s toolbox and Emmet putting a hole in his mother’s washtub.

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Heretic

  • Title: Heretic
  • IMDb: link

Heretic is half a good movie that unfortunately falls completely off a cliff into unimaginative horror. The setup is strong as we meet two young Mormon missionaries making their final stop of the day to share the word of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the middle-aged Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant). Tailor-made to play off an actor like Grant’s collective work, the charming man is of course not what he seems as the two young women slowly realize as an open discussion of religion becomes something far darker.

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