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Challengers – movie review

So imagine for a minute, you’re Luca Guadagnino. Your last three features have been the cannibal road-movie Bones and All (2022), the blood-spattered remake of Suspiria (2018) and the sensitive love story Call Me By Your Name (2017). What do you do next? What’s that? Tennis? Yep, tennis! The mercurial director’s new project is Challengers,…

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Dune: Part Two – movie review

The second installment in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 sci-fi novel picks up where Dune (2021) left off. In this chapter, the exiled Duke of House Atreides, Paul (Timothy Chalamet) establishes himself as a leader. You may remember that in Part One, basically the whole House Atreides was massacred by the evil…

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home surprises, shocks and delights. It takes a trip down memory lane but remains a love story between Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and MJ (Zendaya). Spider-Man’s mentor Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) also plays a central role. And the film introduces the idea of the Marvel multiverse – a collection of alternative universes,…

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Dune – movie review

As cultural touchstones go, few are as storied – or problematic – as Dune. Frank Herbert’s dense 1965 novel was (and is still) regarded as a breakthrough in the sci-fi genre, spawning a sometimes-fanatical following. The book was often considered unfilmable – something reinforced by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt at it in the 1970s. Then…

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Malcolm & Marie – movie review

Fight for what you believe in. Fight for decency. Fight for who you are. In fact, just fight. That is one, perhaps uncharitable, representation of Malcolm & Marie. This black-and-white two-hander focuses on an African-American filmmaker Malcolm (John David Washington) and his live-in partner Marie (Zendaya), a former drug addict. It’s 1 a.m. and they’ve…

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Smallfoot – movie review

Just about everything about Smallfoot is, well, small. This modest animated adventure from co-directors Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge) and Jason Reisig play it very safe. Its lack of ambition however probably won’t matter to school holiday moviegoers. The idea behind the movie is interesting, but the directors and screenwriters don’t really take it anywhere….

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