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It Ends With Us
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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Whatever its faults, there’s something to be said for the way in which it gets to the essence of its source material, delivering an emotional experience that manages to be both clear-eyed and thorny in its complexity.
Posted Aug 08, 2024
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Trap
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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An inventive, improbable and sometimes very funny little thriller, with enough tonal swerves to keep its audience hooked.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Fly Me to the Moon
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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As old-school throwbacks go, it makes for pretty good in-flight entertainment.
Posted Jul 16, 2024
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Twisters
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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It's Powell and Edgar-Jones who remain the real attraction.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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The Bikeriders
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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There’s no seduction to Nichols' storytelling to draw us in, and no real sexiness; he doesn’t tease out the melodrama in the conflict, nor bring the inherent eroticism to the fore.
Posted Jul 09, 2024
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The Promised Land
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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A film that builds toward a rousing and romantic conclusion, capping the kind of sweeping, old-fashioned movie we don't see enough of anymore.
Posted Jun 20, 2024
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Mothers' Instinct
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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It has little sense of the disreputable, or the willingness — even with an admirably twisted finale — to let the material get sufficiently dark and unhinged.
Posted Jun 13, 2024
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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An uneasy, if hardly unprecedented mix of brutal, unflinching violence and overripe sentimentality — a dynamic that has only become more extreme as this series settles deep into middle age.
Posted Jun 07, 2024
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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What was once spare and brutal has become cluttered and over-extended — even if the soul is still there, rattling around somewhere in the engine.
Posted May 24, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has its moments, but its insistence on playing things down the middle feels like a betrayal of the series' bitter, satirical origins.
Posted May 10, 2024
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La Chimera
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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It’s a movie that beguiles as it haunts, touched by both magic and madness.
Posted Apr 17, 2024
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Scoop
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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Does a nice job of whipping things along at a buzzy, compelling clip — even if it occasionally betrays an air of self-congratulation typical of the genre.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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For a movie that features Kong and Godzilla going up against a super-ape riding a radioactive dinosaur, it’s surprisingly dull — devoid of much in the way of wonder, soul, or the genuinely strange.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Priscilla
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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It’s an exquisitely calibrated piece of filmmaking, at once dreamy, melancholy and threaded with quiet power.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Any movie teeming with fantastical ocean creatures, neon-streaked underwater metropolises and Nicole Kidman riding a cybernetic shark should be a blast of escapism, but the Lost Kingdom never transcends the tedium of its weightless green screen action.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Migration
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Illumination’s latest feature is bright and bouncy and largely pitched to audiences who’ve only recently learned to waddle, with plenty of sight gags that will quack up undemanding audiences.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Wish
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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A grab bag of storytelling tropes, generic characters and musical styles from the well-thumbed Disney playbook.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Leo
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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The star’s childlike naïveté is well suited to this pre-teen world, where the tone meets kids on their own terms — and the life lessons are delivered with a refreshing lack of sentimentality.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Foe
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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A film bravely, and admirably, committed to the kind of big emotional swing that unfortunately proves to be its undoing.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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Asteroid City
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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In a career that now spans nearly 30 years, Anderson's latest film – a carousel of astronomers, aliens and singing cowboys; of mid-century madness, deadpan soul and signature melancholy – might just be one of his finest.
Posted Apr 10, 2024
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The Tiger's Apprentice
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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Despite the film's generic take on its source material, there's more than enough colour, energy and rapid-fire action to keep younger viewers engaged.
Posted Apr 04, 2024
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Perfect Days
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Working closely with his Tokyo-based co-screenwriter Takuma Takasaki and a largely Japanese crew, [Wenders[ has crafted a lovely piece of late-career poetry that's equal parts meditative and melancholy.
Posted Mar 27, 2024
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Dune: Part Two
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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If this studious, spectacular shot at Herbert's saga can't always reconcile its warring impulses -- to dazzle and critique in equal measure -- then it's all part of the package, if not the point.
Posted Mar 01, 2024
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Madame Web
(2024)
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Luke Goodsell
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As Ms. Webb tells her colleague at one point, "I just wanna go home and watch Idol." You and me both, Dakota. You and me both.
Posted Feb 15, 2024
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Anatomy of a Fall
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Triet interrogates society's inherent prejudices -- especially when the accused is a woman, and a cultural outsider -- and the ways language can shift meaning.
Posted Jan 31, 2024
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The Color Purple
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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It looks beautiful, the choreography is fantastic. If you're into musical theatre, this more successfully translates the material than the beige redo of Mean Girls.
Posted Jan 25, 2024
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The Iron Claw
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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This is a stylistically rich and rewarding film, worth seeing not just for wrestling fans, but for anyone with a taste for the dark underside of American pop spectacle -- the cracked mirror image of the era's flashy, megawatt spandex stardom.
Posted Jan 19, 2024
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The Holdovers
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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It's formula, to be sure, especially coming from Payne, who's done this sort of thing many times before. But it's so finely delivered -- so droll and funny and warm -- that it's hard not to succumb to its charm.
Posted Jan 12, 2024
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Mean Girls
(2024)
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Stephen A. Russell
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I woke up this morning and can't remember a single line from any of the songs, which is a wee bit disappointing.
Posted Jan 11, 2024
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The Holdovers
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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Soulful... I can't recommend this one highly enough
Posted Jan 11, 2024
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Ferrari
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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A tiresome melodrama... hammy dialogue... terrible affected accents... stilted and a bit shallow.
Posted Jan 04, 2024
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3.5
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Foe
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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Thorny moral dilemmas intrigue.
Posted Jan 04, 2024
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Ferrari
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Ferrari is a film in which triumph and tragedy are twinned, where the ghosts of the past can appear as vivid as the living. For fans of Mann's singular body of work, it's ultimately quite moving.
Posted Jan 04, 2024
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Next Goal Wins
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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While it is cute... it does do a lot of red card-worthy cheap digs about sleepy island culture that's a bit whiffy these days, and there's not enough focus on the team.
Posted Dec 28, 2023
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Dream Scenario
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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I love a delirious dollop of unhinged Cage, and this is it
Posted Dec 28, 2023
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Maestro
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Cooper is a warm, generous actor; it shines through in his portrayal of a man who was bursting with vitality, who was eager to please everyone around him -- even when it came at the expense of loving himself.
Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Maestro
(2023)
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Stephen A. Russell
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Carey Mulligan is fantastic in this, she glimmers
Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Wonka
(2023)
|
Keva York
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If the film isn't quite up to the preternaturally scrumdiddlyumptious standard of its namesake, then it would certainly still pass muster at any of Wonka's rival chocolate companies.
Posted Dec 19, 2023
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The Boy and the Heron
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Like Miyazaki's best work, The Boy and the Heron isn't merely nostalgic for its creator's childhood. It's a challenge to that next generation to rethink the way the world works. That's what keeps him vital, seven decades into his career.
Posted Dec 07, 2023
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Napoleon
(2023)
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Jason Di Rosso
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Scott's Napoleon is flesh and blood. He's also a walking signifier of self-belief, and the film eventually succeeds in transmitting that power.
Posted Nov 23, 2023
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The Marvels
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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There's no escaping the fact that most of this is better intended than executed.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party
(2023)
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Keva York
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White maintains a tight focus on his subject, keeping the gushing, retroactive assessments to a cool minimum.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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Dumb Money
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Dumb Money is slick, admittedly entertaining stuff but, in reconfiguring whatever fleeting battle was won as a series of fist-pumping financial figures, it merely confirms that the system wins in the long run.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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The Pigeon Tunnel
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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For Morris, a filmmaker who is frequently drawn to complicated subjects who move in morality's liminal spaces, le Carré -- and his existential grasp of human deceit -- proves to be a perfect foil.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
|
Jason Di Rosso
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An urgent, devastatingly bleak crime drama about colonialism and murder.
Posted Oct 18, 2023
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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It's yet another sign that Anderson is only getting weirder, and more wondrous, the further he plunges into middle age.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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The Creator
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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The Creator is a film dedicated to empathising with technology that gets undone by human cliché. That might be a comfort in this charged AI climate, but doesn't always make for great science fiction.
Posted Sep 28, 2023
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The Eight Mountains
(2022)
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Jason Di Rosso
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It's a bittersweet drama centring on two men who meet as children... It's about the innocence of youth giving way to the disappointments of adulthood, about the impact of overbearing fathers, about the struggle to find your own place in the world.
Posted Sep 21, 2023
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A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Perhaps the fundamental problem is that the screenplay, with its deference to Christie's logic and reason, refuses to seriously entertain the mysteries of the unknown, keeping the film firmly rooted in the dreariness of the real.
Posted Sep 15, 2023
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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The result is a cinematic pizza-with-the lot: a family platter with something for everyone.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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