Reviews: "Bullet Train" and "Thirteen Lives"

by Nathaniel R

Whenever we're about to go thumbs down on two movies, we feel the need to reiterate that we genuinely love the cinema. Even when we don't love a movie, we're (usually) glad we went. But sometimes you want to love a movie (Thirteen Lives), and it just isn't worthy. Other times you go in, fully expecting a great love (Bullet Train) but the movie is too narcissistic and cocksure to even notice you're watching it in time to love you back...

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Would you rather?

An excuse to share current Instagram photos from actors that we loved this past week or so. So, would you rather?

• Get a tarot reading with Dan Levy?
• Attend a Balenciaga dinner with Michelle Yeoh?
• Celebrate the rain with Drew Barrymore?
• Enjoy the full moon with Chris Lowell?
• Go putt-putt golfing with Brie Larson?
• Pull faces with Glenn Close?
• Carry Brad Pitt with Aaron Taylor Johnson & Bryan Tyree Henry?
• Have two cups of coffee with Beth Grant?
• Skinny dip in Spain with Lewis Tan?
• Dance with Kristen Schaal?

(All images from official instagram accounts) Pictures are after the jump to help you decide...

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Review: Sandra & Channing sparkle in 'The Lost City'

By: Christopher James

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum search for their own "Romancing the Stone" vehicle in "The Lost City."There are some movies that are “perfect films,” masterpieces that elevate the bar on what cinema can do, where not a single frame should be changed. Other movies are “perfect versions of themselves.” The Lost City is not a perfect film by any means. However, it is the perfect version of itself. It’s a light on its feet, star driven adventure-romance-comedy. Watching it transports one back to the 90s, when movies could be sold solely on a movie star and a logline. If the trailer makes you chuckle, you’ll be giggling for the entirety of the 112 minute running time.

There’s the old saying, those who can’t do… teach. In The Lost City, one could say: those who can’t be archeologists, write horny romance novels. That is the fate of Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), who has not left her house since the passing of her beloved explorer husband. Her latest entry in the bestselling romance novel series "Lovemore and Dash"  is about to drop and Loretta’s publisher, Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), insists on putting her on a book tour...

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November's Streaming Roulette: The Harder They Fall at Block Parties and in Nightmare Alleys

HELLO NOVEMBER. You know the drill. We point out ten random titles that are brand new or new (again) to streaming and just for fun, freeze frame them at a totally random place in the scroll bar (no cheating - what comes up is what comes up). If there's a link in the long list after the selected titles it goes to previous articles on that film.

Now I aint gonna kill you, Wiley. You and I were friends once.

THE HARDER THEY FALL (2021) on Netflix
Idris Elba (speaking, hovering over the fallen man) is the antagonist in this movie with Jonathan Majors as our outlaw hero (a rare hero named "Nat", yay!!!) in this all-star Black western. Love those long shadows. The cinematography here is by the super talented Romanian DP Mihai Malamaire, Jr (The Master, Jojo Rabbit, Youth Without Youth).

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The Tree of Life @ 10: The wonder of the movie theater

by Cláudio Alves

As a Portuguese cinephile, the last few weeks have been a weird mixture of happiness for others and ugly jealousy. Looking on social media, I can see international friends returning to movie theaters, fully vaccinated, while I remain at home, not knowing when such privileges will be accessible. I realize this bitterness is wrong, but I can't help it. I miss going to the movies quite terribly. I miss being engulfed by the images projected on the big screen and feeling a wall of sound crash over my head like a tidal wave. However, unlike other filmgoers, I don't care too much about the communal aspect of the experience (with the exception of film festivals).

As a way of exorcising these demons and explaining the yearning, let me describe one of the most memorable filmgoing experiences I can remember. It happened around a decade ago, upon The Tree of Life's release…

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