REVIEW: Belfast [2021]

What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own. There’s a version of Kenneth Branagh‘s personal coming-of-age story Belfast that probably could have been rated-G and the fact he refused to deliver it should be praised. That doesn’t necessarily mean sanitizing a violent and deadly conflict like the late-1960s start of “The Troubles” into a PG-13 is much better, though. If not for regular explosions and a superficial entrance into the politics (reduced to Protestants hating Catholics on a religious basis rather than the more integral nationalist one religion…

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REVIEW: Ford v Ferrari [2019]

I’ll have you home for meatloaf and gravy. The man at the center of James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari is Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a former driver turned racecar designer forced into retirement by a heart condition exacerbated by the difficulties of his high-speed sport of choice. His narrative importance lies in being the connective tissue between Ken Miles (Christian Bale as his close friend and colleague) and Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts as a man who needs no introduction) once the titular war at Le Mans gets underway. His…

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REVIEW: Money Monster [2016]

“It’s time to throw some punches” The show must and will go on. This is the lesson Jodie Foster‘s latest thriller Money Monster provides above its suspense-fueled look into corporate greed and Wall Street’s seemingly Teflon-covered skin. I don’t know if it was written this way by Alan DiFiore, Jim Kouf, and Jamie Linden or if Foster put the more global arena spin of humanity’s craving for disaster on the other end of a television screen during the editing process, but you can’t help get slapped in the face by…

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