Priscilla
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Female empowerment in the shadow of Elvis Presley. |
| I wasn’t expecting the romance between Priscilla and Elvis Presley to be a tale of female empowerment and women’s liberation, but here we are. Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla features Cailee Spaeny as the young Priscilla (fourteen years old to be exact) smitten in love and over the years, almost imperceptibly at first, grows to be a woman who stands up for herself and gets out of the stardom of Elvis Presley and an abusive relationship before it destroys her. | 2023 Directed by: Sofia Coppola Screenplay by: Sofia Coppola Based on the book by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon Starring: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi | |
| See full review of Priscilla | ||
The Other Zoey
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Cute, funny and relatable. |
| Zoey Miller (Josephine Langford) is The Other Zoey, the less popular, less cool Zoey, the one who’s not dating school soccer star Zack (Drew Starkey). And that’s fine by this Zoey, she’s more interested in getting into grad school for computer sciences anyways than dating some shallow jock. Until Zack gets hit by a car, gets amnesia, and mistakes this Zoey as Zoey Wallace, the soccer-playing very cool Zoey that he is dating, or was dating, it’s going to get complicated. | 2023 Directed by: Sara Zandieh Screenplay by: Matthew Tabak Starring: Josephine Langford, Drew Starkey | |
| See full review of The Other Zoey | ||
Mystic Christmas
Perfectly pleasant and often boring.
| Mystic Christmas is an occasionally cute but often just boring Christmas romance. Usually exes at Christmas leads to a lot of fun in movie world, but here it’s just very tame. Juniper (Jessy Schram) is a marine expert returning home to temporarily help out the local aquarium. Her ex is the very nice Sawyer (Chandler Massey). They are both just nice people leading nice lives and it’s all a little boring. | 2023 Directed by: Marlo Hunter Screenplay by: Nicole Drespel Starring: Jessy Schram, Chandler Massey | |
| See full review of Mystic Christmas | ||
The Retirement Plan
A purposely bad movie with Cage in granddad/assassin mode.
| Action comedy The Retirement Plan had very little planning go into it: Cast Nicolas Cage, make him a good guy, and have him kill a whole bunch of bad guys. There’s certainly an element of fun to that premise, but it’s a very broad, very over-the-top re-purposing of an action crime drama into a comedy. Jimmy and Ashley find themselves on the run from bad guys who will kill them if they don’t get what they want: a critical thumb drive. They need an escape plan. | 2023 Directed by: Tim Brown Screenplay by: Tim Brown Starring: Nicolas Cage, Ashley Greene, Thalia Campbell and Ron Perlman | |
| See full review of The Retirement Plan | ||
Barbie
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A funny and smart synopsis of Barbie in the real world vs Barbieland. |
| Barbie is book-ended with a history of Barbie and Mattel. Within the opening minute it gives a concise breakdown of why Barbie exists and why it become so popular: because Barbie represented a world of possibilities, girls could play pretend as anything they wanted, they were no longer confined to playing house. Over in Barbieland, all the Barbies are living their best life. Their best plastic life. | 2023 Directed by: Greta Gerwig Screenplay by: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling | |
| See full review of Barbie | ||
Oppenheimer
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Complexity of a tortured genius. |
| Oppenheimer tells a complicated portrait of a complicated by man by weaving in the science, the politics, and his fame. The first act is primarily Robert Oppenheimer as the physicist – an impulsive and smart young man, who studied in Europe and learned the languages and cultures around him. It also starts introducing the political trials that will surround him in later years. | 2023 Directed by: Christopher Nolan Screenplay by: Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. | |
| See full review of Oppenheimer | ||