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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Woo boy, are we Godzilla fans living in some good times for Godzilla projects. Not only do we have the Legendary Western Godzilla (along with King Kong) starring MonsterVerse, we have had Netflix animated movies,…
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Napoleon
We have two octogenarians out here in the modern cinema landscape. With Scorsese taking up a lot of the mind space because of superhero movie fans’ issues with his feelings about the MCU and Superhero…
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Wish
So Disney is celebrating 100 years this year. What’s funny is that it might be in the most tumultuous years in its history, between the writers’ and actors’ strikes happening simultaneously and the CEO becoming…
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
While the huge phase of the YA novel series adaptations dominating the movie theater has moved on to the possible falling times of the Superhero era, we get a new Hunger Games film out of…
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Rap Sh!t season 2
Rap music is in a very interesting and, at times, troubling place this year. In a year where core features of the sounds of current rap are heard from other popular American music genres, it’s…
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The Marvels – Julian’s Review
Well, it’s almost been five years since Captain Marvel hit theaters, and since then, she has made some appearances, most notably Avengers: Endgame. The first film made over 1 billion dollars at the global box…
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Quiz Lady
Quiz Lady is a buddy comedy starring Awkwafina and Sandra Oh as two estranged sisters who must come together to help deal with their mother’s gambling debts. Sounds simple enough, right? The twist in this…
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Five Nights at Freddy’s
Five Nights at Freddy’s is the newest horror movie from Blumhouse and the latest video game adaptation in a year full of them. Based on a point-and-click survival horror game that built a huge following…
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The Holdovers
I really didn’t expect to get a holiday film in October. I guess I could complain about the extension of the holiday season into the warm parts of autumn and hating on pumpkin spice, but…
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The Burial
I must say it’s wild for me just how much streaming has changed the movie business and how we see what we see. While there is so much noise about concert films making a big…
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FOE
I didn’t know what I would be walking into when I sat down in my theater seat to see this new film from Amazon/MGM called FOE. See, after all these years reviewing films, I often…
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The Exorcist: Believer
It’s hard to try and make a new movie in a long-standing and beloved franchise. Especially when the first movie is a classic, and especially in the horror genre. Then you have something like The…
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Loki: Season 2 – Julian’s Review
Well, we have our first MCU show to reach a second season – Loki. Other than WandaVision, Loki was a favorite among many, but not much for me. See, for me, Loki season one started…
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Fair Play
Fair Play is a new film by Chloe Domont starring Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich. Fair Play is a throwback, a return to the erotic thriller genre, something that used to have films out all…
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Dumb Money
Dumb Money – it’s a phrase I’ve used over the years, but it was this film that I learned a new meaning for it. Dumb Money is a term that professional investors use for regular…
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A Haunting in Venice
I think Kenneth Branagh must really love portraying the iconic Hercule Poirot because I never expected there would be three of these films. In this one, we have a retired Poirot in Venice, Italy, staying…
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
So it’s 2023, and somehow, My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a third film seven years after the last one, which was almost fifteen years between the first and the second. We have our main…
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Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake
Adventure Time might be one of the most landmark animated series in the history of cartoons. It was a shifting moment in culture along with Regular Show that marked a whole new period in Cartoon…
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One Piece (2023 – Season 1)
We’re in foreign waters now, folks. You’re probably like, this is a bad pun, or what do you mean by that? Well, we’re in a good live-action Anime adaptation world. With getting that out of…
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Gran Turismo
So the year is 1998. It’s my senior year of High School, and it’s a few weeks away from graduation, and everyone had full-on senioritis at school. One day, we had the PlayStation in a…
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STAR WARS: Ahsoka (first two episodes)
Let me start this off that Ahsoka is the Star Wars live-action show I’ve been waiting for since they started doing these. The Mandalorian never piqued my interest in him or the “Child,” who is…
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Blue Beetle
The Blue Beetle is a long-standing superhero that most have no clue who they are. Can people actually care about a brand-new to them superhero in 2023 during the supposed waning desire for superhero entertainment?…
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Strays
I really don’t know why we, as audiences, like movies about pets going on adventures, but they seem to be made constantly. I guess there’s something about seeing animals have an interiority of their own…
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The Monkey King (2023)
Journey to the West might be one of the most influential stories in the world. The story of a Buddhist monk traveling westward to central Asia and India greatly impacts the Eastern world. At least…
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter
I think ever since Bram Stoker’s book Dracula was released, it has had a hold on our imaginations. We’ve seen so many interpretations and retelling stories using this character and also that of the vampire.…
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Heart of Stone
Heart of Stone is another one of Netflix’s attempts at making a big-budget action movie that you watch at home instead of the movie theater. Even though you can watch it in a theater for…
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Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty -Season 2
Let’s rewind a bit. I didn’t talk about how good Winning Time season one was. For some reason, it made some of the actual people portrayed angry even though it felt like it humanized them…
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
So it’s summer 2023, and we have a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Now for some, it’s been a while. They probably checked out of Ninja Turtles in the mid-90s. They old. For some,…
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Haunted Mansion (2023)
As much as Disney gets flack and, at times, huge financial success from constantly remaking their classic animated features into live-action, they have another track they’ve been running over the past few decades. That track…
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Twisted Metal: season 1
We are currently in a pretty good place with video games being adapted into film and television. After many years we’re at a place where things are finally getting to a certain level of quality,…
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Theater Camp
I didn’t know what I was getting into with Theater Camp. From the trailer, it looked like a nice little comedy with misfits mentoring a bunch of theater kids. While essentially, I got that I…
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Superpowered: The DC Story
Well, what do you know, it’s San Diego Comic-Con week here in the United States. It will be a weird one for some, but for others, it will be closer to old times. No celebrities…
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BARBIE
It’s a big week for movies with competing releases of Oppenheimer, a film that is a huge event biopic about the man who led the Manhattan Project and created the Atomic Bomb against what on…
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They Cloned Tyrone
Right now, we are in a surprising place of a lot of Black surrealism in our media. And a lot might not be the best description for some, but we went from nothing to a…
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Full Circle
I don’t know how to start this review, honestly. See Full Circle is a dense and complex piece of fiction from Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon that ties so many threads together you might need…
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Earth Mama
Earth Mama is a sobering film and a piece of filmmaking that, as a male, didn’t make me feel uncomfortable but empathetic. I feel more aware of the different experiences and struggles women face. Savanah…
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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 has Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and our team dealing with the most significant threat they have ever faced. Ethan is now with just his stalwart teammates here – Luther…
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My Adventures with Superman
I wasn’t always a big fan of Superman. While I liked watching Superfriends or the CBS animated Ruby-Spears series in the late 80s, along with just watching the movies when on TV, I got to…
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Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Right now, I think Dreamworks Animation. I feel that they are the underdog in this current animation world right now. While Illumination has been packing houses, Sony Animation has been shattering expectations, and Disney/Pixar is…
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Asteroid City
Curated artifice. That’s what I think about when I picture Wes Anderson. He uses nostalgia for mid-American century aesthetics, one of a world that the United States told itself and portrayed in its media of…
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No Hard Feelings
Do you all remember going to the movie theater to see a comedy? I think I’ve said this before because there are so few comedies that I get to see in theaters, especially good ones…
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Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai – Season 1
I was a bit shocked when I learned that a new Gremilns animated series was in the works I was a bit shocked. As much as I liked The Gremlins movies, I felt it got…
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I’m A Virgo
I’m A Virgo is weird you all. I’m talking weird weird. Now I’m with this, but watching this, folks aren’t ready for just how out there this show is while it also is very grounded…
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Elemental
I think Pixar is in a weird place right now. In a lot of ways, the pandemic has set them back, and I don’t know if Disney has done right by them lately. The rest…
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Secret Invasion Preview (Episodes 1 & 2)
(This post talks about the first two episodes of Secret Invasion and could have things considered minor spoilers) So after a month and a half or so, we have the start of a new chapter…
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The Blackening
You know, for the longest time within horror, the only two Black people to survive were two legendary rappers, LL Cool J, and Ice Cube. Maybe their personas made those filmmakers and the viewers at…
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Flamin’ Hot
Who would’ve thought that in 2023 we’d get so many films about businesses creating successful products? Some feel these are glorified commercials, but I believe in this late-stage capitalism and ending hustle era, these stories…
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The Flash – Julian’s Review
After almost so long, we have finally gotten The Flash movie in theaters. After nine seasons of television, a direct to disc Animated film, and even a Lego movie. The film starring Ezra Miller as…
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse -Julian’s Review
So five years after changing how American Feature Animation the cinematic animated adventures of Miles Morales, Spider-Man. This film taking place almost a year and a half from the end of the last film, sees…
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The Little Mermaid (2023) – Julian’s Review
I was pretty down on the idea of this film from the start. See, I’ve gotten significantly diminishing returns from these live-action remakes of the Disney Classics that we’ve gotten for more than a decade.…
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You Hurt My Feelings – Julian’s Review
You Hurt My Feelings was a pretty interesting observational comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague, and Jeannie Berlin. This story is rather intimate, with Beth (Louis-Dreyfus) and Don (Menzies)…
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About My Father Review
Sebastian Maniscalco stars in and co-writes this film based partially on his real life and his relationship with his father. In About My Father, Sebastian plays a version of himself: a boutique hotel manager who’s…
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The Tower 2: Death Message
So I’ve been pretty out of it regarding shows from across the pond. UK television here in the States is always highly regarded for dramas and comedic shows. With their dramas, their police procedurals are…
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White Men Can’t Jump (2023)
For many reasons, I questioned the idea of remaking a classic 90s film like White Men Can’t Jump. Much like the other 90s Hip Hop film remake this year, House Party, some of the issues…
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Fast x Review by Julian Lytle
Vin Diesel can never fail me with his Family. Time and again for the last twenty-two years, with all the people coming and going, and as the stakes and feats get larger and larger, I’m…
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Blackberry
So here we are in 2023 with our second business biopic essentially with Blackberry directed by Matt Johnson and starring Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton. This movie is I guess a comedy-drama but it mostly…
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Star Wars Visions: Volume 2 review
An international theme follows last year’s dream of Star Wars Anime, with animated shorts from animation studios from countries worldwide
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Beau is Afraid
Man, sometimes you see a film, and it just screams – A. R. T. and that is what we have here with Ari Aster’s new film Beau is Afraid.
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Chevalier
So the story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is one that I feel a lot of Black people in the United States have no clue about.
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Showing Up
This intimate and quirky art world comedy won’t make you burst out laughing, but it is pretty hilarious.
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Renfield
Renfield takes the Dracula story and puts the focus on his familiar/servant Renfield as in the modern times, is no longer enjoying his servant life under the abusive Count Dracula.
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Suzume – Julian’s Review
Suzume is a wonderfully told story about a teenage girl named Suzume. After seeing a beautiful young man, she ends up on an adventure to save Japan by quelling restless spirits that cause disasters around the…
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Creed III
With Creed III, it’s not pulling from classic boxing matches but from something he’s a huge fan of: Shonen anime.
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Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
Alright, what we have here is that Guy Ritchie seemed to be envious of Tom Cruise and called up his main star Jason Statham and decided to do a Mission Impossible-like spy romp with a touch…
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Magic Mike’s Last Dance
Soderbergh and screenwriter Reid Carolin put together a film that at times feels like a gender-flipped Pretty Woman that becomes a film about filmmaking with a heavy dose of romantic tension and beefcake for those…
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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
This was a movie that just had Kang on screen more than telling a good and fulfilling story and one worthy of Ant-Man and the Wasp standing on its own.
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You People
Basically: A raunchier Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and a great rom-com about two people who never expected to fall for each other. Time to be honest: I’ve been hard on Kenya Barris and his work lately. Some…
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When You Finish Saving the World
Directed by Jesse Eisenberg Basically: A mother and son deal with difficulties relating to each other during his teenage years. While researching When You Finish Saving the World, I found that debut writer/director Jesse Eisenberg first wrote this story…
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Missing
Directed by Nicholas D. Johnson & Will Merrick Basically: A teenage girl who has a rocky relationship with her mom has to search for her when she doesn’t return from a trip. Who saw Searching a few years…
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Tales of the Jedi
Basically: Six short stories about characters we know well from The Clone Wars era. I don’t know if I’ve written this before so bear with me: I prefer Star Wars in cartoon form. I think the concepts, themes,…
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Andor: A Bold and Gritty Evolution of the Star Wars Universe
The story of the beginnings of the Rebel Alliance through the character of Cassian Andor from Rogue One
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Movie Review: Prey
Prey is an awesome restart of the Predator franchise featuring a fantastic new heroine with a star-making performance.
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X
Basically: In 1979 a group of people rent out a house on an old farm from two old people to make a porno but none of it goes well. I’m pretty open about the fact that…
