NIGHTMARE ALLEY

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Insufferable, poorly paced, sterile melodrama with a double side of gore.

Yawn.

Guillermo del Toro has forgotten how to make movies.

Del Toro's script co-writer Kim Morgan shoulders some of the blame.

Bradley Cooper is awful. Cate Blanchett is awful.

Quel désastre. 

Richard Jenkins and Rooney Mara fair little better.

Paint dries faster than this movie gets around to the matter at hand, namely a high-stakes con game run by an overreaching mentalist.

Zzzzzzz.

Rated R. 150 very long mins.

ZERO STARS

ONIBABA — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Disturbing medieval Japan wartime horror rabbit hole based on a Buddhist fable.

Chills consume you under Kaneto Shindo's spell of magically real erotic horror that follows a destitute old woman, her daughter-in-law, and her deceased husband's war comrade.

You don't know crazy until you've seen "Onibaba."

A lush darkness fills every trippy scene in this stone cold (black-and-white) classic of Japanese horror. 

Criterion collector's gift for certain.

Not Rated. 102 mins.

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal!

THE LODGE

Irredeemable shite. “The Lodge” is a mean-spirited, ignorant assault on Cinema, and on its audience.

Screenwriter-directors Sergio Casci and Veronika Franz aren’t fit to flip burgers at a fast-food chain, based on their pathetic attempt at exploitation horror. With no trace of humor or good will, the filmmakers craft a feel-bad picture with the potential to traumatize its viewers if not bore them into a trance state of misery.

Cruel husband Richard (Richard Armitage) intimidates his ex-wife  Laura (Alicia Silverstone) into suicide. Charming. Richard’s next move is to send his equally hateful daughter and son to terrorize his new fiancé Grace (Riley Keough) while the three are sequestered in a remote snowbound lodge. Remarkably, Grace is the only empathetic character in a film that should never have been made. This film’s tagline, “You’re not welcome here,” says it all. Hitchcock is rolling over in his grave.

Rated. R. 108 mins. Zero Stars.

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal!