Movie Reviews

The Color Purple

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  • Title: The Color Purple (2023)
  • IMDb: link

The Color Purple

Taken from the Broadway musical which was itself adapted from Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, we meet Celie (Fantasia Barrino) who, like the other African-American women in the story, is treated rather shabbily over the first two-thirds of the film by men before standing up for herself to her abuser (Colman Domingo) and, at least in this version, having her story turn on a dime (which may or may not give you whiplash) where she receives everything she could ever have wished for over the film’s final act.

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The Boys in the Boat

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  • Title: The Boys in the Boat
  • IMDb: link

The Boys in the Boat

As director, George Clooney has tackled period pieces before (see Leatherheads, The Monuments Men, and the terrific Good Night, and Good Luck). This time Clooney follows the journey of Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) who joins the University of Washington junior varsity rowing team not out of any love for the sport but as a way to help cover his tuition during the lean years of the Great Depression. Rowing, or crew, isn’t the most cinematic of sports, but the screenplay by Mark L. Smith which adapts Daniel James Brown’s non-fiction novel, plays on the intense conditioning, hard work, and teamwork of the sport with the JV crew the underdog team at a university of underdogs with much to prove to themselves and others.

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Wonka

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  • Title: Wonka
  • IMDb: link

Wonka

The attempt to tell the origin story for Roald Dahl‘s famous eccentric chocolatier is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand we get Timothée Chalamet as the still naive young man seeking his fortune creating chocolate for the world to enjoy which provides the heart of the film. There’s enough here that we can see the possibility of this version of Willy Wonka growing into the far more gruff character we see played by Gene Wilder. On the other hand we’re left with a script that turns out to have little to do with chocolate and more to do with crazy antics, involving bumbling bad guys, really only suited for small children.

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The Iron Claw

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  • Title: The Iron Claw
  • IMDb: link

The Iron Claw

When asked by his girlfriend (Lily James) what he wants out of life, Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron) states his desire to simply spend time with his brothers. Brought up in wresting by their father Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany), Kevin, David (Harris Dickinson), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), and Mike (Stanley Simons) wrestled as part of the Von Erich promotion World Class Championship Wrestling with Fritz pushing his sons to their limits and beyond while ranking and tempering his love for his sons by how each performed in the ring.

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Poor Things

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  • Title: Poor Things
  • IMDb: link

Poor Things

Welcome back to the weird world of writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos whose latest bizarre tale offers us Emma Stone as the reincarnated corpse of a woman with the brain of a baby brought back to life by mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Rechristened Bella, the restless young woman eventually desires to leave the confines of Victorian London heading out in the world with smitten scoundrel Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) despite the affections of Baxter’s assistant (Ramy Youssef) for her.

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