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The Princess Switch  (2018)
The Princess Switch (2018)
2018 | Comedy, Drama, Family
The Great Christmas Bake-Off! Netflix's The Princess Switch (2018) #Review
As Netflix continues to make its big push to become the new Hallmark, a slew of cookie-cutter Christmas movies have started appearing on the streaming network. “The Princess Switch” takes the well-worn tale of “The Prince And The Pauper” and dusts it with the seasonal covering of icing sugar in the form of a fictional European principality, a conveniently staged baking competition and a pair of star-crossed would-be lovers...

FULL REVIEW: http://bit.ly/CraggusPrincessSwitch
  
Rampage (2018)
Rampage (2018)
2018 | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
The Rock (1 more)
CGI
The human villian duo (0 more)
Considering this moster movie was based on an 80s arcade game (that I barely remember playing on the Nintendo) it was surprisingly good. Sure it is a bit campy at some points its not over the top like some other 80s video game movie adaptations I could name. There's a well rounded cast of characters, my biggest issue is the villainous brother and sister the acting at times seemed staged (not wooden but like read lines?) they were ok but more meh.
Good movie for a few cheap jump scares, wonton destruction and some good laughs.
  
Lat sau san taam (Hard-Boiled) (1992)
Lat sau san taam (Hard-Boiled) (1992)
1992 | Action, International, Drama
9.5 (2 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I know this is out of print, but I still have the Criterion disc on my shelf, and it’s one of my favorite DVDs ever. U.S. cinema has made the action film a national product, but all in all I keep thinking of two films that have rewritten filmed and staged action: George Miller’s Mad Max 2, from Australia, and Woo’s Hard Boiled, from Hong Kong. They look familiar as recognizable genre exercises (chases, shootouts), but the truth is they are pretty dangerous and extreme. If you can ever release a Blu-ray for this, I’ll get it."

Source
  
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Ruth Wilson recommended The Warriors (1979) in Movies (curated)

 
The Warriors (1979)
The Warriors (1979)
1979 | Crime, Drama, Thriller

"The Warriors, only because it was such a brilliant… Well, actually, the reason why is because I did it as my first-ever stage play. We did a staged version of The Warriors, which is absurd, and it was, like, a lot of British kids running around hitting each other with polystyrene baseball bats. It was such a theatrical version of New York, of the gangs in New York, and it was visceral and sort of fun and energetic, and I loved it. I watched it when I was probably about 11, and kind of loved it."

Source
  
The Last Mile (Amos Decker #2)
The Last Mile (Amos Decker #2)
David Baldacci | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is a sequel to ‘Memory Man’ but I do think readers could pick up the background easily. The story follows an FBI task force investigator, Amos Decker, a man who can forget nothing due to an injury as an American Football player. Melvin Mars is a man on death row who needs to dig deep into his past to find out the truth behind his incarceration. It’s a very American thriller with some very staged dialogue, lots of guns and criminology but I really enjoyed the idea of a man blessed and cursed with perfect recall. A tale of twists and turns that kept me reading.
  
The Last Samurai (2003)
The Last Samurai (2003)
2003 | Action, Drama, War
Troubled Civil War veteran Tom Cruise goes off to Japan to train their new modern-style army just after the Meiji restoration; winds up being allowed to become a samurai despite not quite meeting the minimum height requirement.

Clearly wants to be a lavish Dances With Wolves-style epic drama; works well enough as a historical adventure with some well-staged action sequences, but not quite as moving or powerful as it would really like. Every Japanese person I know who's seen this movie seems to think it's supposed to be a hilarious deadpan comedy. Someone should tell Cruise it's bad manners to organise a kamikaze charge and not die alongside everyone else.
  
Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy #1)
Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy #1)
Mira Grant | 2010 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy
7
8.2 (11 Ratings)
Book Rating
Great premise for a zombie series, the usual man-made virus trope dusted off again, but this time thee action happens quite some time after the breakout and society is fairly stable and safe now. Or at least it would be if those ruddy journalists (the protagonists) didn't go poking sticks where they shouldn't.
This is something of a zombie version of Hunter S Thompson's campaign trail with the hired journalists documenting a presidential candidate's campaign trail, with various implausible (staged) accidents.
The action rolls along well, the characters are a little irritating and some of the dialogue really got on my nerves.
Overall an enjoyable read with something of a message to it, and I did carry on with the series.
  
The Final Destination (2009)
The Final Destination (2009)
2009 | Action, Horror
Touted to be the last film in the series, The Final Destination is even more disappointing than its predecessor and thankfully not the final outing for the franchise.

Utilising sloppy 3D effects that cheapened the film’s look was a bad move by director David R. Ellis and even the main disaster was uninspiring to watch – a NASCAR race just didn’t cut it after already having a vehicular disaster in Final Destination 2. The climax however, staged in a cinema, is incredibly clever.

Add to this some truly dreadful acting and awful dialogue and it makes for a low-point that thankfully was reversed just two years later. Unbelievably, this was also the most successful of the series.

https://moviemetropolis.net/2017/10/15/final-destination-franchise-reviews/
  
Snowpiercer (2013)
Snowpiercer (2013)
2013 | Sci-Fi
Dystopian sci-fi movie from the director of Parasite and that film about the giant pig. After an ecological disaster, the last remnants of humanity are stuck on a train doing endless circuits of the world. What will they do when the sausage rolls and toilet paper run out?

Almost certainly the best Korean-Czech graphic novel adaptation ever made, and a pretty good film in all departments - a faint structural resemblence to The Matrix Reloaded may unsettle some viewers, but it just about holds together, and any holes in the plot are largely excused by the fact the film is clearly meant to be intepreted metaphorically. Fine cast, many interesting ideas, well-staged action; should have been a much bigger hit.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Mrs Lowry & Son (2019) in Movies

Sep 10, 2019 (Updated Sep 10, 2019)  
Mrs Lowry & Son (2019)
Mrs Lowry & Son (2019)
2019 | Drama
It's Grim Up North
Biographical drama about the artist Lowry (he of matchstalk this-and-that fame); based on a stage play and it really does show. Middle-aged clerk Lowry works by day, tends to his clinging, unsympathetic mother in the evenings, and paints at night. Not entirely unlike a variation on Steptoe and Son, only without any jokes.

Well-played, naturally, and well-staged, naturally, but the scenes of the two of them in a small room together, with her crushing his dreams and obsessed with petty social concerns, quickly become repetitive: the brief sequences with Lowry articulating his thoughts on his art, occasionally recreating his paintings, are much more interesting. Watchable but a bit dull; doesn't really do Lowry's art justice.