This Is a Movie Review: Annabelle: Creation

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Annabelle: Creation really takes a while to ramp up the intensity. Like, at least an hour, maybe even an hour-fifteen, into its running time, at which point it finally starts ripping limbs and tearing faces apart enough to (barely) justify its R rating. That is kind of crazy given the relentless standard set by the previous Conjuring/Annabelle films. In the prelude, there are a lot of lingering close-ups and light/dark interplay in which you have plenty of time to uncover the agents of evil lurking in the fuzzy shadows. Ultimately, Creation is most valuable for how it expands the mythology, favoring a harmonically mind-bending approach that calls to mind the latter-day Paranormal Activity sequels.

I give Annabelle: Creation 5 Broken Fingers Around a Cross in Every Frame.

This Is a Movie Review: Steven Soderbergh and the ‘Logan Lucky’ Crew Pull Off a Heist at the Biggest Race of the Year

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Credit: Claudette Barius / Fingerprint Releasing | Bleecker Street

This review was originally published on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Katie Holmes, Dwight Yoakam, Seth MacFarlane, Jack Quaid, Brian Gleeson, Katherine Waterston, Hilary Swank

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 119 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Improvised Explosives and Slapstick Violence, Often Involving a Prosthetic

Release Date: August 18, 2017

If you follow the sports world, you will have noticed lately the several examples of the wonders that taking significant time off does towards extending a career. Roger Federer and Serena Williams, perhaps the two greatest tennis players of all time, have taken months-long breaks and at ages 36 and 35, respectively (ancient by athletic standards), they are still somehow in the primes of their careers. The physicality of sports and filmmaking are not exactly the same, but both can be similarly taxing. So while it is right to question the accuracy of Steven Soderbergh’s claim that he was retiring from directing, it is not right to question the wisdom of what he was actually doing, i.e., taking a nice, long, relaxing break, as Logan Lucky is the type of film that you make only when you are bursting with energy.

Logan is Soderbergh’s first directorial effort since 2013’s Side Effects and the HBO film Behind the Candelabra, but in premise, it most obviously brings to mind his Ocean’s trilogy. Recently unemployed West Virginia coal miner Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) recruits his one-armed Iraq War vet bartender brother Clyde (Adam Driver) and hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough), along with incarcerated bleached-blonde demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and Joe’s supposed computer expert brothers Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson), to rob the cash deposits at Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600, the longest annual race on the NASCAR calendar. So it is basically a hillbilly Ocean’s 11 (Logan’s 6, if you will), and that connection is referenced head-on with a sneakily well-timed joke. Now, don’t let that description fool you into thinking that this film looks down on the people that populate it. Its particular strength is how thoroughly and empathetically each character is rendered, despite their colorful personalities offering an easy temptation for stereotypes.

Accordingly, every actor is given plenty of opportunities to stretch, with Soderbergh guiding them along to their best instincts. Keough shines in her accounting of the West Virginia highway system, Driver is wholly convincing with his unassuming one-armed bartending prowess, Seth MacFarlane is Snidely Whiplash-levels ridiculous as a luxuriously coiffed, arrogant driver, Farrah Mackenzie (as Jimmy’s young daughter Sadie) charms enough to somehow make pageant culture a little less nauseating than usual, and when Special Agent Hilary Swank shows up, she makes an all-business demeanor just as much fun as criminality. But the biggest praise is rightfully reserved for Craig, who is delightfully unhinged in the friendliest way possible, as well as Dwight Yoakam, as a warden whose loss of control of his prison amazingly involves the most hilarious taking to task of George R.R. Martin I have ever witnessed.

The conflict of heist movies is such that their cool vibes always goad you into rooting for the criminals. While these robbers typically are not violent, and often target the most powerful and greediest, they are in fact still criminals. The fact that these are just movies should be enough to remove any feelings of moral crisis. But in case you want more than that, there is a Robin Hood-style resolution. Your mileage may vary on what that means in terms of ethical implications, but there is no doubt that it contributes to the good vibes.

Logan Lucky is Recommended If You Like: Heist Films, Southern-Fried Flavor, Feeling Pumped When You Walk Out of the Theater

Grade: 4 out of 5 Painted Cockroaches

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Patti Cake$’ Makes Tasty North Jersey Hip Hop Cake as Fast as It Can

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Photo courtesy of Jeong Park. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

This review was originally posted on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Danielle Macdonald, Bridget Everett, Siddharth Dhananjay, Mamoudou Athie, Cathy Moriarty

Director: Geremy Jasper

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: R for Three Generations of Women Spouting Profanity, Showing Off Cleavage at Job Interviews

Release Date: August 18, 2017 (Limited)

Most rappers are still black and male, but the genre is such a permanent fixture in the culture at large that any deviation from the demographic norm is hardly surprising. So I appreciate that Patti Cake$ treats the race and gender of its protagonist as generally no big deal one way or the other. After all, she does live in the “Dirty Jersey” melting pot of Bergen County (right across Manhattan along the George Washington Bridge). Alas, while Patti Cake$ does spit to its own rhythm, it hews pretty closely to the beats of the struggling artist narrative. But what it lacks in structural ingenuity, it makes up for with the variety of seemingly disparate parts that complement each other in its collage.

Patricia Dombrowski (Australian newcomer Danielle Macdonald) is feisty enough on her own, but it is thanks to her collaborators that she really shines. The group they form is christened “PBNJ,” wherein P is Patti, J is her longtime best friend on the hooks Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay), B is disaffected but sensitive anarchist beat-mixer Basterd, and N is Patti’s Nana (Cathy Moriarty), whose chainsmoke-ravaged rasp is adorably sampled and looped into the chorus. As far as rap goes, their tracks aren’t exactly mind-blowing, or game-changing, or groundbreaking, and the movie concedes as much. Still, they are plenty rousing. That relative lack of prowess holds it back from being an all-time great in the genre, but it is powerful enough, and the modesty is appreciated.

If Patti Cake$ sticks with you, it will most likely be because of how generously it lets you into Patti’s life. She is an upstanding young adult, putting just as much effort into into the money-making aspect of her hustle as she does the rhyming side. Her relationship with her mother Barb (Bridget Everett) is as affecting as it ought to be. Barb is not exactly supportive of Patti’s hip-hop ambitions, but it is not because she is unsupportive in general, far from it. Nor is it because she does not understand the life of an artist – in fact, she had a bit of a musical career herself as the lead singer of a lady metal band that was cut short just as they were on the edge of big-time success. It’s just that she’s old school, set in her own way, and just hasn’t seen any evidence that rap is a genre worth pursuing. That is why the final performance scene at an amateur showcase concert is so crucial. It wraps everything up thematically and unites every member of Patti’s family, putting her story squarely in the file of “crowd-pleaser.”

Patti Cake$ is Recommended If You Like: 8 Mile, Affectionately making fun of North Jersey, Mother-Daughter Bonding

Grade: 3 out of 5 Acronym Band Names

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Whose Streets?’ Asks the Most Urgent Questions for Ferguson, St. Louis, and All of America

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in August 2017.

Documentary

Director: Sabaah Folayan

Running Time: 103 Minutes

Rating: R for The Words People Say When They Are Justifiably Angry

Release Date: August 11, 2017 (Limited)

It is not hard to be mad enough to make a whole film about the recent police abuses in this country. It is practically its own subgenre at this point. But it can be challenging to channel that anger into something unique and focused. Whose Streets? cracks open the genre in a way that seeks to renew humanity to the dehumanized. Local law enforcement is trucking out in tanks on the streets of St. Louis and Ferguson as if their residents are militant insurgents. Whose streets are these really? That ought to be a rhetorical question, as the answer should be obvious. What we have here is a new angle getting at the same old overarching question: do we really have the rights that our country has promised us?

Taking that insurgency comparison further, at one point a Missouri resident muses how militants in countries like Iraq have been branded as insurgents, despite fighting in their homeland. It is the most salient point of the film, highlighting how one of the most skewed perspectives baked into American policy extends in every direction. It all amounts to shouting at a system that is nowhere near having the same conversation as you.

For some viewers, the correctness of Whose Streets?’s perspective will be enough to excuse the occasionally scattered approach that is a feature of most documentaries. And indeed, this doc is more righteously focused than most. Its lack of polish holds me back from a full endorsement, and I also wonder if Whose Streets? can really make any tangible difference in finding justice for the likes of Michael Brown and Vonderrit Myers. But I can’t deny the power, and continued need, to shout out these cries with fiery emotion.

Whose Streets? is Recommended If You Like: Social justice documentaries

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Riots

This Is a Movie Review: Robert Pattinson is a Low-Level Bank Robber and Devoted Brother in the Grainy, Queens-Set ‘Good Time’

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Ben Safdie, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi

Director: Ben and Josh Safdie

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: R for the Vices of a Night in the City

Release Date: August 11, 2017 (Limited)

How far would you go for a better life for yourself and your brother? If said brother is mentally handicapped and you are the lead character in a crime-on-the-streets movie, then chances are the answer is “pretty far.” Ergo, there is no surprise about the general forces that pushes Good Time along, but the details are quite unpredictable.

The majority of the plot follows Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) in a desperate night through Queens as he attempts to correct his mistakes and bust his brother Nick (co-director Ben Safdie) out of jail following a botched bank robbery. He first attempts to cover the bail money by turning to a friend/lover (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who is way too old for him and for her own lack of emotional maturity. But another snag pops up when it is revealed that Nick is under police supervision in the hospital. Connie plows forward with his improvisation, but it becomes more and more obvious that he is not going to pull off his scheme, what with law enforcement always nearby and the caprices of fate constantly messing with him. It all adds up to a night of drugs, mistaken identity, and an empty amusement park in a land where cliché need not apply.

The joys of Good Time – and its biggest weakness – are aesthetic. The Safdie brothers exclusively favor extreme close-ups for conversations and kinetic camera movement when characters go from here to there. The shot selection, combined with the grainy digital cinematography and bass-heavy synth score, create a sensorially overwhelming experience that too few films attempt. The photography does get into a bit of trouble whenever the action moves into especially dark corners, rendering it nearly impossible to make out anything that is happening. That is possibly intentional, but it is not advisable. But in a film with this much clarity and consistency of vision, that is only a minor quibble.

Good Time is Recommended If You Like: Robert Pattinson’s auteur collaborations, Miami Vice, The economic desperation of Don’t Breathe

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Dye Packs

This Is a Movie Review: Aubrey Plaza Stops You Cold in the Instagram Tragicomedy ‘Ingrid Goes West’

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Wyatt Russell, Billy Magnussen, Pom Klementieff

Director: Matt Spicer

Running Time: 97 Minutes

Rating: R for Cosplay Hanky-Panky, Surprise Cocaine, and an Amateur Kidnapping

Release Date: August 11, 2017 (Limited)

An early montage of Instagram posts in Ingrid Goes West features Elizabeth Olsen reading out loud the entirety of the captions. This is jarring for a couple of reasons, partly because captions are not designed to be spoken aloud and mainly because the emoji are given concrete descriptions. I would argue that such straightforwardness is antithetical to the spirit of emoji, whose meanings are often implicitly understood but generally maintain a level of fluidity. Similarly, social media posts purport to present a certain specific message, but there are layers of further meaning lurking underneath.

People like Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) interpret public personae with too much unwavering conviction, overly certain that an interaction with a virtual fan is an invitation to become a flesh-and-blood friend. But what Ingrid Goes West suggests is, maybe that is not exactly what she believes. Maybe that rigidity is just a coping mechanism because the alternative is too complicated to handle. Ingrid becomes obsessed with Taylor Sloane (Olsen) not just because her Instagrams of avocado toast represent the height of L.A. cool, but mainly because of the illusion that her life is perfectly put-together. To someone who is obviously mentally ill (and thus whose brain does not allow any stability), that is intoxicating.

Ingrid Goes West is not a condemnation of Instagram, not really. It is just the medium through which some unhealthy behavior that would still exist otherwise happens to be taking place. Still, if you are wrapped up in it, it is an overwhelming medium. What is fascinating about Plaza’s performance is that her excessive social media use does not drive her to make Ingrid excessively fake, but rather unnervingly real. True, she makes “friends” under false pretenses, but her capacity for genuine relationships and deep cavern of pain are what stick with you.

Ingrid Goes West is Recommended If You Like: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The King of Comedy

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Avocado Toasts

This Is a Movie Review: I Saw ‘The Dark Tower’ – Please Send Help

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor

Director: Nikolaj Arcel

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Gunslinging and Fire Beasts

Release Date: August 4, 2017

Unlike most bloated modern blockbusters, The Dark Tower keeps it under two hours, clocking in at a merciful 95 minutes. Unfortunately, that is the best thing about it. Within the first 10 minutes of this dud, and for the remaining 85 thereafter, my primary thought was, “Well, at least it is going to be over soon.” This adaptation of Stephen King’s long-running series of novels could benefit from an extended runtime, as it would allow room to actually explain what the hell is going on, but that could only improve it so much, as its problems run much deeper than narrative confusion.

The crowd I saw it with applauded at the end, and several other times throughout, so perhaps if you’re a Dark Tower aficionado (do you call yourselves “gunslingers”?), it might work for you, but for the uninitiated, there is no effort to explain character motivations or the rules that govern this world. The point of this whole adventure is saving the titular structure, as its destruction would lead to the extinction of all existence. Roland (Idris Elba), a gunslinger, is trying to protect it, but he is stuck in an epic interdimensional struggle with Walter (Matthew McConaughey), aka the Man in Black, a sorcerer who wants to … destroy the tower? Or control it? Or just accumulate power in general? The fight between these two has possibly been lasting for centuries, or maybe just hours. The stakes between them seem especially personal, but they do not need to be, considering that Walter’s villainy is all-encompassing.

Sucked up into all this, for no clearly discernible reason, is young Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor). Jake does not really fit the Chosen One fantasy trope, mostly because he barely registers as a character as all. His presence in this conflict is mostly accidental. He has “the shine,” a psychic ability found in many of King’s works, which allows him to observe interdimensional goings-on in his dreams but does not make him particularly interesting.

The Dark Tower manages to wring out a few decent stabs at humor, thanks to Roland’s fish-out-of-water presence when Jake whisks him away to Earth. He asks “what breed?” when told he is eating a hot dog and pops a whole cocktail of painkillers like they’re candy. Most pointedly, Jake assures him that he is going to love Earth, due to its much easier availability of bullets than Roland is used to. But it occasionally feels like he should have a better idea of what is going on, or maybe he should have no idea at all. If you told me that Roland had visited Earth 100 times previously, or never, both possibilities would sound just as believable.

Something resembling laughter also comes from King’s knack for inexplicable dialogue, which is relentless throughout. The Dark Tower epitomizes the sort of complicated story that makes perfect sense to the people telling it but leaves no guidance for outsiders to find their way in.

The Dark Tower is Recommended If You Like: Stephen King’s awkward dialogue, Administering the autopsy on a box office disaster

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 Magics

This Is a Movie Review: The Writer of ‘Sicario’ and ‘Hell or High Water’ Directs the Snow-Blanketed Mystery-Thriller ‘Wind River’

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CREDIT: Fred Hayes/The Weinstein Company

This review was originally posted on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Gil Birmingham, Jon Bernthal

Director: Taylor Sheridan

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: R for the Terrible Things That Men Do When They Think They Can Get Away With It

Release Date: August 4, 2017 (Limited)

As a lover of cinema, I favor originality, moreso in terms of premise than subject matter. It is worthwhile to give voice to underrepresented stories, but it can be disheartening when they hew closely to the formulas of familiar narratives. Wind River makes those conclusions a little more complicated by baking the invisibility into its entire purpose. The dead body of a young woman is discovered in the snow in Wisconsin’s Wind River Indian Reservation, and the investigation is complicated by the harshness of the elements, the fact that this is technically a federal jurisdiction, and the lack of attention given to Native American women in peril.

Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), the FBI agent sent to investigate, pulls up right in front of the check-in cabin but cannot see it, as a relentless blizzard erases any concept of visibility. That is not the only way she is unprepared, as the locals assure her that her lack of winter gear  means she is liable to freeze to death in a matter of hours in the woods. She just flew in from Las Vegas but was somehow the closest agent available. The residents of Wind River are bemused, but not offended. They are used to being forgotten and either making peace with the harsh conditions or surrendering to them.

Most of Wind River is a team-up between Banner and US Fish and Wildlife agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), a tracker who knows the land better than anyone and discovered the body in the first place. She is the novice outsider doing her best to understand this world, and he, with a Native ex-wife and son, is the outsider from within. The snow and the lack of hard evidence force them to take meditative breaks and philosophical detours, rendering much of the film a lament about the waste of promising life. For those of you who prefer your mysteries wrapped up neatly, the truth of the crime is eventually revealed in a bravura flashback, but the full extent of it is only presented to the audience. The investigative team puts it all together, but this is still a world in which everything is ephemeral unless someone shines a light on it.

Wind River is Recommended If You Like: Hell or High Water, Mud, Prisoners

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Frostbites

This Is a Movie Review: Al Gore Can’t Stop as He Delivers ‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power’

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in July 2017.

Starring: Al Gore

Director: Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG for the Disturbing Implications of Glaciers Breaking Apart

Release Date: July 28, 2017 (Limited)

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power opens with shots of nature accompanied by audio snippets of climate change deniers taking Al Gore to task for what they believe to be the former vice president’s mass hoodwinking. But this dismissal, at least of the aggressively reflexive variety, is few and far between in the rest of the film. The effects of global warming are already too real and overwhelming for the point of Gore’s campaign to be just convincing people about the truth anymore. During one presentation, he notes that the most criticized part of An Inconvenient Truth was the speculation that parts of New York City could soon be underwater. As anyone who survived Superstorm Sandy knows, he may have actually undersold that possibility.

While knowing the facts about climate change is essential for any inhabitant of Earth, I am worried that watching a documentary like An Inconvenient Sequel may actually be counterproductive. The crisis it presents is so depressing and overwhelming to the potential point of debilitation, especially in light of all the other calls to action out there. Back in 2006, An Inconvenient Truth could very conceivably have been the only significant coverage of global warming you saw all year. But in 2017, the average Inconvenient Sequel viewer may very well have in the past month also watched the Netflix doc Chasing Coral, read that apocalyptic New York Magazine cover story, and seen multiple climate-based VICE segments. Is it necessary to take in all of it?

If you want your answer in cinematic terms, An Inconvenient Sequel is far from the most compelling documentary format. The original got a lot of guff for being just a recording of a straightforward Powerpoint presentation, but in retrospect, that lo-fi approach had its charms and offered a useful degree of focus. But Sequel has little in the way of a distinct structure. At least the (sadly incomplete) narrative is compelling, and Gore remains an agreeable personality. He likes to joke that he is a “recovering politician,” and indeed, his current work has cured him of much of his robotic stiffness.

An Inconvenient Sequel does its best to end on a hopeful note, perhaps naïvely. But if we are going to survive the time we have left on this planet with any semblance of sanity and pleasure, some unwarranted optimism may be necessary. Gore is tangibly excited by the world’s increased use of solar panels, and I am similarly heartened by the number of cities that are embracing renewable energy. That will all help stop the spread of greenhouse gases, but it will not reverse the dangerous amounts that have already been released. That likely requires some wholly unprecedented out-of-the-box thinking. I am glad that An Inconvenient Sequel is around to keep spreading the word, but we need to go deeper.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is Recommended If You Like: Tormenting Yourself with the Planet’s Demise, Solar Panels, The Comedy of Al Gore

Grade: 3 out of 5 Solar Panels

This Is a Movie Review: Charlize Theron is Masterfully Icy Enough to Overcome ‘Atomic Blonde’s’ Shortcomings

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CREDIT: Focus Features

This review was originally posted on News Cult in July 2017.

Starring: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, Eddie Marsan, John Goodman, Toby Jones

Director: David Leitch

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: R for Bullets, Knives, Punches, and Kicks

Release Date: July 28, 2017

At its best, Atomic Blonde is like a cool music video. That description may sound useless in its simplicity, but when a film’s pleasures are its simplest ones, such pith is justified. I believe most people understand inherently what makes a music video cool, but to deconstruct it into its concrete components and how it relates to Atomic Blonde: it is about the combination of recognizable beats and imaginative imagery. Most action films have style, but not all of them have distinct visual wit that you won’t find anywhere else. Spray paint-strewn opening credits give way to an aesthetic dominated by icy blues. 1989 Berlin is filled with cloudy, low-lit neon clubs, and a new wave-heavy soundtrack that tends towards the robotically impersonal. Charlize Theron, the atomic blonde herself, is even introduced waking up in an ice bath.

For some godforsaken reason, Atomic Blonde also cares just as much about its plot. Theron plays Lorraine Broughton, an MI6 agent sent to Berlin to kill German spies. There is no need to remember her name – I am not sure anyone ever calls her by it – but it is useful to keep track of all the other byzantine details. Broughton teams up with a loose cannon station chief (James McAvoy) with some trepidation, eventually they have to extract a German operative (Eddie Marsan), and it all goes pear-shaped, leading to the frame device of the (consistently amusing) exit interview with her superiors (Toby Jones, John Goodman). The twists keep turning all the way to a somewhat exhausting near-two hour running time.

But do your best to trim through the fat, because we’re all here to see Charlize – as they say – “kick ass.” Director David Leitch offers hectic set pieces that are much easier to keep track of than his work on the first John Wick. Broughton is impressively skilled in all forms of combat, but she is not invincible. Just about every character suffers puncture wounds, so be prepared to wince. (2017 Trend Watch: improvised slicing weapons to the face, as one baddie gets a set of keys stuck in his cheek, just as John Wick utilized a pencil in his second chapter.)There is also a little bit of time to kick back and relax. A detour with Sofia Boutella as an undercover French agent is kind of cool partly because you do not often see queer relationships in this type of movie, but more so because a Theron-Boutella tȇte-à-tȇte is a solid attraction. The whole affair is a little more distressing and less intellectual than it probably means to be, but Atomic Blonde gets the job done.

Atomic Blonde is Recommended If You Like: John Wick: Chapter 2, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Raid: Redemption, Dark New Wave Soundtracks

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Keys to the Face

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