REVIEW: Out of the Blue [2022]

Maybe I can be the solution. A new cinematic drinking game has arrived. It’s a doozy too since taking a shot every time writer/director Neil LaBute uses an intertitle demarking time in Out of the Blue means you’ll probably pass out before Connor’s (Ray Nicholson) inevitable plan to kill Marilyn’s (Diane Kruger) abusive husband is floated let alone put in motion. Many are arbitrary. Some are exacting. Few have narrative relevance beyond telling us something we already know. I’m not therefore sure what the point of using so many is…

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REVIEW: House of Darkness [2022]

Seeing things already? Hap (Justin Long) can barely believe his luck. Drunk at the bar and prone to delivering corny pick-up lines, he decides to chat up Mina (Kate Bosworth) only to discover she’s amenable to his liquor-tinged charms. While we don’t witness this meet-cute ourselves, seeing them in his car as it pulls up to her secluded woodlands estate reveals they must have hit it off. Just because Hap was brave enough to offer his services as chauffeur, however, doesn’t mean he’d go so far as to invite himself…

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