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IR Film Review: BELFAST [Focus]
"Belfast" is Kenneth Branagh's love letter but also his contemplation on his youth within the context of family. There is an interesting balance here that is sometimes achieved but most of the time it is too subtly progressed despite a very clear path.
IR Film Review: ANTLERS [Searchlight]
"Antlers" works on certain assumptions and formulas but creates an interesting essence of character build while not delivering completely. While the progression is simple in terms of a genre tale of a mythic creature wreaking havoc, it is the human story that is the most complex.
IR Film Review: LAST NIGHT IN SOHO [Focus]
The essence of perception always builds in the ideas of what can be seen. The texture of "Last Night In Soho" can be a reflection of two truths but with both being paved in a necessity of their own existence. Both lives that the story follows can be misjudged or misaligned.
IR Film Review: HALLOWEEN KILLS [Universal]
There are some moments of textured brilliance in "Kills" but it does have to play to a certain denominator and set up which is does adequately despite some shoddy structure, questionable dialogue and barely flushed out characters save for the core.
IR Film Review: THE LAST DUEL [20th Century Studios]
"The Last Duel" is, in many way, fairly straightforward in its structure but in seeing the inherent structure post viewing it builds an interesting viewpoint in its dynamic but it is not as powerful as it might have been.
IR Film Review: NO TIME TO DIE [MGM]
Daniel Craig's final entry into the Bond series "No Time To Die" begins and ends with a finality to it. It harks back while looking forward. It does everything it likely should but in elevating Bond and making him more modern, at times, it loses a bit of what he is, sans societal norms.
IR Film Review: THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK [Warner Brothers]
The film moves around but does so like a TV show and not in movie making terms in terms of sweeping gestures. "The Sopranos" in all actuality is quite good on TV for a reason, because it is about those small moments that don't need grand cinematic gestures.
IR Film Review: VENOM - LET THERE BE CARNAGE [Sony]
While Hardy and Venom in their scenes are brilliant (despite not using motion capture), it doesn't translate at all to the overall thrust of the movie which is too bad considering who he is going up against in Woody Harrelson as serial killer Celtus Kasady.
IR Film Review: TITANE [Neon]
"Titane" is unique and tries a lot of different things. In doing so it creates riveting performances at times from Lindon and Rouselle while bathing a story in metaphors that only truly works when the truth of caring comes through.