Drama

Lady Macbeth

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  • Title: Lady Macbeth
  • IMDb: link

Only loosely based on Nikolai Leskov’s novella, 2016’s Lady Macbeth is primarily notable for the lead performance of Florence Pugh as a younger wife stuck in a marriage of convivence to a disinterested older man (Paul Hilton) growing more and more isolated in rural Northumberland before beginning an affair with one of her husband’s servants (Cosmo Jarvis). The film from director William Oldroyd takes some patience as, to highlight the banality of her life, nothing happens for the first 20 minutes of the film. We don’t know who Katherine was before her marriage and whether circumstances drove her to the cruelty on display or simply allowed that cruelty to fester and eventually lash out.

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Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
  • IMDb: link

The award-winning, and often banned for its frank discussion of puberty and religion, Judy Blume 1970 young adult novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is adapted for film by writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig. Smartly choosing to keep the film in the 70s, and avoid having to deal with modern day technology that would certainly alter the story, we are introduced to sixth-grade student Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) facing a number of challenges as she and her parents move from New York City to New Jersey and she navigates a new grade, new friends, the arrival of puberty, and struggles with the ideas of her family’s two different religions.

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Air

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  • Title: Air
  • IMDb: link

I have to say, I’m really enjoying the last few years of Matt Damon‘s career. You could easily slot Air into an entertaining double-feature with either The Martian or Ford v Ferrari. Using a well-worn Hollywood trope of an underdog fighting the odds, Air stars Damon as Nike salesman Sonny Vaccaro who in the mid-1980s pushed the running shoe company into an unlikely deal by signing rookie basketball star Michael Jordan to an industry-changing contract.

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The Inspection

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  • Title: The Inspection
  • IMDb: link

Written and directed by Elegance Bratton, and inspired by his real life experiences, Jeremy Pope stars as a gay, black, homeless man who joins the Marine Corp where he encounters brutal, and at time life-threatening, hazing from his training instructor (Bokeem Woodbine) and other recruits. It’s a deeply personal and harsh look not only at the intolerance and hate our main character finds in the Marines while succeeding where no one believes he can but also from his mother (Gabrielle Union) unable to cope or accept his sexuality.

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The Quiet Girl

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Quiet Girl
  • IMDb: link

Catherine Clinch stars as Cáit, a quiet and introspective 9 year-old girl of neglectful parents who for the summer of 1981 is sent to stay with a distant cousin (Carrie Crowley) and her husband (Andrew Bennett). Far better off, and with no children of their own, Eibhlín showers Cáit the affection she didn’t find from her mother or father or among her siblings back home, although her husband Seán is far more aloof and takes time to warm to her arrival.

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