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3/5
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Alien Resurrection
(1997)
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Jeff Simon
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It's a horrifying, formulaic, and very crude movie, truly wretchedly written much of the time. But no one can claim that it doesn't have moments that are very effective.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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3.5/5
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Alien 3
(1992)
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Jeff Simon
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It gets the job done. And as movie sequels go, it's positively brainy.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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Aliens
(1986)
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Jeff Simon
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A raucous and juvenile and terrifying entertainment full of guns, sweaty grunts, dirty fatigues, flame-throwers and ghostly creatures around dark corners.
Posted Jul 30, 2024
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3.5/5
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Twister
(1996)
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Jeff Simon
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Twister is everything people want in a movie that comes with air conditioning. It's visually spectacular and as wild and loud a ride as any amusement park stomach-churner.
Posted Jul 16, 2024
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When Harry Met Sally...
(1989)
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Jeff Simon
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Anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of everything Reiner and Ephron have done thus far knows that When Harry Met Sally is their baby all the way -- wall-eyed sentimental ending and all.
Posted Jul 12, 2024
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Jaws
(1975)
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Terry Doran
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The novelty is thin; and if it weren't for the huge national publicity campaign which tells you I'm out of my mind, I'd say it's routine stuff.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
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Let It Be
(1970)
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Anthony Bannon
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A cold experience... So cold, in fact, that carry a clinch between John Lennon and Yoko Ono can warm it. Still, it is not an unlikable film. Because it is a strange film.
Posted May 09, 2024
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Steel Magnolias
(1989)
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Jeff Simon
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The result is something grotesque and misshapen.
Posted May 03, 2024
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Planet of the Apes
(1968)
|
Ardis Smith
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A colossal agglomeration of cinematic stunts, wildly spectacular and often very funny.
Posted May 01, 2024
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3.5/5
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Planet of the Apes
(2001)
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Jeff Simon
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All summer blockbusters should be this clever and exciting.
Posted May 01, 2024
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3/4
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Postcards From the Edge
(1990)
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Jeff Simon
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It is, then, a moderately bright and well-acted movie. It’s also just a wee bit silly.
Posted Apr 29, 2024
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Only Yesterday
(1933)
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E.H. Gooding
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Women in particular will be moved by this quiet story of a girl whose love and devotion were equaled only by her strength of character and singleness of purpose.
Posted Apr 23, 2024
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The Mad Miss Manton
(1938)
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Ardis Smith
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Mr. Stanley Ridges... is the most appealing felon, one of the crazed, glazed-eyed and quiet kind.
Posted Apr 22, 2024
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The Lavender Hill Mob
(1951)
|
Mary Nash
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A deliciously droll, ingenious English comedy.
Posted Apr 18, 2024
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Road to Ruin
(1934)
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E.H. Gooding
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There never is any doubt about the solemn moral intent of The Road to Ruin, which the cast enacts with almost as much embarrassment as the audience suffers.
Posted Apr 15, 2024
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Jailhouse Rock
(1957)
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Jeanette Eichel
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[The studio thinks] that adults are going to like the film -- Presley’s first really dramatic one. He does fairly well with it.
Posted Apr 12, 2024
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Spaceballs
(1987)
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Jeff Simon
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Despite some wonderful moments the spirit of Spaceballs isn’t the madhouse, it’s the playroom.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
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4/4
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Little Women
(1994)
|
Scott Thomas
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It's a film that celebrates, all gender aside, humanity itself.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
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The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings
(1976)
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Anthony Bannon
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[Bingo Long is] a fine movie which gives an important recreation of our country's past in a spirit full of hope and good cheer. When's the last time you heard a ring of applause at the end of a movie?
Posted Apr 11, 2024
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The Big Heat
(1953)
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Ardis Smith
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Fritz Lang, a masterful crime violence and mob-psychology specialist for a couple of decades (M and Fury), gives his sure timing to the ambushing, skull-cracking and assorted shooting.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
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Dog Day Afternoon
(1975)
|
Hal Crowther
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Now and then... we find a film that takes the reality of human beings under pressure and explores it a little further. Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon'' is one of the best.
Posted Apr 06, 2024
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Lady Sings the Blues
(1972)
|
Jean Reeves
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Everything the writers and director Sidney J. Furie touch becomes maudlin and trite.
Posted Apr 05, 2024
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Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(1977)
|
Anthony Bannon
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Sophisticates will find a lot to snigger over; sophisticates, in fact, must snigger at movies like this. But for most it will be a smooth trip, like King Kong, into movie entertainment at the top of its act.
Posted Apr 03, 2024
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4/5
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Seven
(1995)
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Jeff Simon
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It's a case where a traditional but nicely twisted plot is married smartly to MTV visuals, to the uncommon advantage of them both.
Posted Mar 29, 2024
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Sabrina
(1954)
|
Ardis Smith
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For once, the big budget brought to bear on a successful one-set Broadway comedy of last season has paid dividends in delightful nonsense.
Posted Mar 28, 2024
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1.5/5
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Showgirls
(1995)
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Jeff Simon
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Being charitable, Verhoeven is approaching this material like a smarmy European anti-materialist alarmist. If you don't want to be charitable, you'd have to say that Verhoeven has approached this script like an incompetent and exploitive sleazebag.
Posted Mar 27, 2024
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3/5
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Almost Famous
(2000)
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Jeff Simon
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Don't get me wrong. I like it. It's virtually a requisite for being a human being in the rock era to feel that way. Love is another matter. To those who love it, it's virtually a portrait of their adolescent yearnings.
Posted Mar 26, 2024
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The Searchers
(1956)
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Jeanette Eichel
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Mr. Bond gives a marvelously hearty interpretation of the Texas Ranger leader who alternates between the military and a clergyman's duties.
Posted Mar 22, 2024
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Chinatown
(1974)
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Jeff Simon
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It is, I think, Polanski's finest movie. And... it is just about the best in the modern end of a film tradition that began with Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep.
Posted Mar 08, 2024
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4/5
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The New Age
(1994)
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Jeff Simon
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There is brilliance all through The New Age -- in the writing and especially the performances of Peter Weller and Judy Davis, two of the best and most perennially underrated around. But it's a brilliance too pitiless and clear-eyed to be lovable.
Posted Mar 04, 2024
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4/5
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The Shawshank Redemption
(1994)
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Jeff Simon
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It's a movie with dignity and surprises and before it has finished, it has acquired a good deal of power.
Posted Mar 04, 2024
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2.5/5
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Thumbelina
(1994)
|
Scott Thomas
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Bluth puts a lot of stock in action and movement, sometimes at the expense of characterization.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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2.5/5
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Threesome
(1994)
|
Gregory Racz
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TriStar hopes that audiences' libidinous imaginations will keep their minds off the film's flaws.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3/5
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Sirens
(1994)
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Jeff Simon
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It can be pleasant and distracting to watch but it ends up to be cutesy of all things.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3.5/5
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The Ref
(1994)
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Jeff Simon
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No matter how clever the script sometimes is, the laughs elicited by this movie are cheap, tinny sitcom laughs.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3/5
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Three Colors: Blue
(1993)
|
Richard Huntington
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Juliette Binoche as Julie, a bereaved heroine, nearly saves this existential rehash. With her somnambulistic stares and her ability to make silence a palpable experience, she gives a badly overwrought film some moments of real profundity.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3/5
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The Paper
(1994)
|
Jeff Simon
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A smart and entertaining movie, not an important one.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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4/5
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Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
(1994)
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Jeff Simon
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The latest installment in the sublime gag-a-minute series does to the Oscars what we'd all like to see done to them: turns them into a rich, aromatic stew of kitsch and calamity.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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2/5
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Major League II
(1994)
|
Scott Thomas
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Limp sequel to the ragtag-team-makes-good 1989 movie.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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1.5/5
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Lightning Jack
(1994)
|
Jeff Simon
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It isn't Paul Hogan's sad showing a writer/star of this feeble Western spoof about a gunfighter and his pupil that ought to worry us, it's the career of fine young actor Cuba Gooding Jr.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3/5
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Jimmy Hollywood
(1994)
|
Jeff Simon
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It's an entertaining movie but Joe Pesci, as Jimmy, may be the worst bit of casting that master caster Levinson has ever done.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3/5
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The Hudsucker Proxy
(1994)
|
Jeff Simon
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There is more intelligence and inventiveness in any random five minutes of a film by Joel and Ethan Coen than you can find in an entire year's worth of movies from some studios I can think of.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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2/5
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The House of the Spirits
(1993)
|
Jeff Simon
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It's artsy polyglot baloney. Not house that's this divided against itself could possibly stand.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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0/5
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Holy Matrimony
(1994)
|
Jeff Simon
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With luck, Disney studios reached absolute bottom with this movie.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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1.5/5
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D2: The Mighty Ducks
(1994)
|
Melinda Miller
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Real junior hockey players might enjoy the fast-paced skating and rollerblading scenes, but when it comes to a story, this "Ducks" doesn't fly.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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2/5
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Above the Rim
(1994)
|
Scott Thomas
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The plot is a predictable slide toward the big game.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3/5
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Clifford
(1994)
|
Mary Kunz Goldman
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Kids don't want to see an adult parodying a kid (they don't get the joke) but I laughed like a freak.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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3.5/5
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Four Weddings and a Funeral
(1994)
|
Jeff Simon
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Until that ending it's a very funny and very literate entertainment sure to please part of the Sleepless in Seattle set.
Posted Feb 29, 2024
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The Sin of Nora Moran
(1933)
|
E.H. Gooding
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The film, however, has such a soporific effect on audiences that it is doubtful if many can be bothered to sort out the real events from the imaginary ones.
Posted Feb 22, 2024
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Dune
(1984)
|
Jeff Simon
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It's a remarkable film by a remarkable talent.
Posted Feb 15, 2024
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