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4/5
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Unicorns
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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A well-crafted genre movie that can comfortably rest on the talent of its actors, who instil a giant beating heart at the centre of this very watchable film.
Posted Jul 07, 2024
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4/5
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Challengers
(2024)
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Ben Turner
|
Challengers might not be the tennis movie you expect, but it’s the tennis movie Guadagnino wanted us to see and we are totally here for that. Tense, sharp and extremely sexy, it tastes just as delicious as it looks.
Posted Jul 07, 2024
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3/5
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Drive-Away Dolls
(2024)
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Ben Turner
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A mediocre place-holder that will be remembered as a Coen Miss, not a Coen Hit
Posted Jul 07, 2024
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2/5
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Birder
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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As an erotic thriller it focuses more on the erotic, but even that is somewhat undermined by the silliness of romping about in the buff.
Posted Jul 07, 2024
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2/5
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The Mattachine Family
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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Rose-tinted and saccharine sweet, its hyper-realistic style is tainted by a drenching of idealised nostalgia that leaves this contemplative mumblecore somewhat lacking any real substance.
Posted Jul 07, 2024
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4/5
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Nimona
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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It has fight after battle after skirmish after fight, which is certainly exciting but feels somewhat formulaic. But then, what else could possibly happen in a futuristic medieval kingdom?
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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Aligned
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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As an unabashed and unashamed piece of homoeroticism, this delivers in spades. Just don’t kid yourself that you need to watch it with the sound on.
Posted May 30, 2024
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5/5
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Monster
(2023)
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Ben Turner
|
A shrewd and edgy social commentary, this is an intelligent and contemplative film played out through pithy dialogue and arresting visuals. This is Japanese filmmaking at its absolute best.
Posted May 30, 2024
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1/5
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Orlando, My Political Biography
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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An overwrought academic slice of virtue-signalling, this is a very difficult film to sit through.
Posted May 30, 2024
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4/5
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Silver Haze
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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Stark, bleak and painfully true, this is the tragic story of how one broken person cannot heal another.
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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Maisie
(2021)
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Ben Turner
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On the one hand, this is a celebration of a bygone era, when drag queens were about big hair, sequins and innuendo. On the other, this is a warts-and-all observational doc that morbidly examines loneliness and mental decline.
Posted May 30, 2024
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4/5
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Carnal Sins
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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This certainly isn’t accessible horror, but it certainly serves an unsettling slice of nuanced and unpleasant suspense.
Posted May 30, 2024
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4/5
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Monica
(2022)
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Ben Turner
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It may not be the snappiest film in the world, but what it lacks in haste it makes up for in characterisation. Though we spend a good portion watching the family simply function by itself, Lysette has anchored this film with a giant beating heart.
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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Eileen
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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A dreary yet dramatic film that doesn’t quite live up to its potential, it suffers from being annoyingly uneven, with a titular character that we care very little for.
Posted May 30, 2024
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4/5
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Opponent
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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A nuanced and affecting drama centred on a deeply compound character, this is a moving portrait of the complexities of asylum.
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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Norwegian Dream
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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The boys are certainly endearing enough and watching their chemistry makes for charming viewing, but this is well-trod territory.
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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Monkey Man
(2024)
|
Ben Turner
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For a generation brought up on RPGs, this will feel like familiar territory, but for those looking for a little more finesse, this is a very loud and brash film that lacks the subtlety of a finer crafted work.
Posted May 30, 2024
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4/5
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Love Lies Bleeding
(2024)
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Ben Turner
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This is all about strength, but deeply flawed strength, where vanity is the Achilles heel. Adrenaline-filled and breathlessly stylish, this is a very strong period flick that feels like a twenty-first century Bound.
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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Our Son
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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Serious, sober and sensibly intense, this is an unfrivolous and restrained drama that doesn’t quite have the emotive gut-punch that you might expect for a film about a broken home.
Posted May 30, 2024
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3/5
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The Teacher
(2020)
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Ben Turner
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There’s a lot of subtlety to the film, but in trying to remain nuanced it has ended up over-restrained. The result is a film that competently makes its point, but does so politely and without making a fuss.
Posted Mar 07, 2024
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4/5
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The Lost Boys
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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Dark, gritty and filled with hopelessness, this is a tragic and sad coming-of-age movie that turns the genre on its head.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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4/5
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Every Body
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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The film makes much of the importance of visibility, ensuring that the public understands and can see real intersex people in the media.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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3/5
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Down Low
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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Crammed with laughs across a delightfully stupid story, this is a fun film with great performances let down by absurdist plotting.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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4/5
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Bottoms
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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Yes, this looks and smells and feels like an American high school, but this is absurdism first and foremost. I think we can safely say that both Seligman and Sennott firmly have our attention.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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4/5
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Good Grief
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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It might not roll out the belly laughs, but it will certainly make you chuckle even while you’re emoting deeply.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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4/5
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The Color Purple
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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If you're not watching it in a vacuum... well you can't help but see its cracks, but if you are? Prepare to have your socks blown off.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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5/5
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All of Us Strangers
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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Restrained, nuanced and deeply affecting, this is one of the very best LGBT+ movies - or any movies for that matter - released in the last decade. This is a shattering story and in fact, I would wager, a truly perfect film.
Posted Feb 07, 2024
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3/5
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Nuovo Olimpo
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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Dreamy, passionate and exceptionally serious, this decades-long romance is underserved by its over-generous helping.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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1/5
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Exteriors
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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The stories are bland and meandering, feeling inconsequential and flat. Without music or tension, these are just banal duologues that feel like a screenwriter just wrote three extended scenes and couldn’t be bothered to find a story to fit them into.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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4/5
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Eismayer
(2022)
|
Ben Turner
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The story might be simple but the characters are expansive, with both of its leads delivering the kind of knock-out performances that Hollywood can only wish for sometimes.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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3/5
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Rustin
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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It’s clear that Bayard Rustin is a figure worthy of the biopic treatment, but the film has ended up an American movie for an American audience that hasn’t translated well to an international one.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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5/5
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Saltburn
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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With excellent acting, arresting visuals and art direction to die for, this is one of the most original movies to be released in years.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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5/5
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Femme
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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This is a perfect genre movie, delivering every aspect of an erotic thriller with aplomb. Dark, sumptuous, chilling and sexy, this is a delectable watch and the kind of movie that is so rarely made nowadays.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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3/5
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Nyad
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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With a wholly conventional narrative and very few hiccups along the way, it does feel like a dramatisation without much of a purpose.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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3/5
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Fanfic
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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Unfortunately it suffers from a narrative that really has been played out countless times before.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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5/5
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Queendom
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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"A remarkable film that weave empowerment with unsettling tension and artistry with pure barbarism. It is by far the most affecting documentary of the year."
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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4/5
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Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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Taking a flaws-and-all exposé approach, the film isn’t afraid to open the door of his closet so we can really see the man whose death had as much of a legacy as his life.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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3/5
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20,000 Species of Bees
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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The story is strong enough to make this a compelling and emotive piece, but it could easily have been improved by an editor strong enough to hem this neatly around its fraying edges.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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3/5
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Golden Delicious
(2022)
|
Ben Turner
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Well-made and entertaining teenage idealism that does a sturdy job at depicting the modern experience of a sexual awakening. Teen audiences will lap this up, but for those well-versed in the coming-of-age genre, this is fairly tepid fayre.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4/5
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Strange Way of Life
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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Atmospheric, cinematic and beautiful, the plot is simple but the characters complex.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4/5
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Passages
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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A brilliantly acted and sparingly composed film that succeeds in bringing this extraordinary issue politely to the screen with real emotional intelligence. This is unquestionably Sachs’ best film to date.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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3/5
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Cassandro
(2023)
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Ben Turner
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Flamboyant, camp and so far over the top he’s skated down the other side, Cassandro is a fascinating figure ripe for the biopic treatment. But lucha libre is unlikely to find any new fans off the back of this mediocre film.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4/5
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Punch
(2022)
|
Ben Turner
|
Drenched in the cold light of the seashore, these two opposites find themselves in each other. And alongside them, we fall in love with them both.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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2/5
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Loud & Longing
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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With a cast of characters from every gender, sexuality and race together, this is a veritable smorgasbord of rainbow diversity. But for all the film’s honourable intentions, these are underserved by its drearily flat execution.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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4/5
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Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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In giving the story of Queer people in the Holocaust a focus, this documentary surmounts the scale of the Holocaust by giving it a clutch of human faces.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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2/5
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Elephant
(2022)
|
Ben Turner
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A film that tries to cast a romance against the backdrop of homophobia in rural Poland, this is a slow and uninteresting plod that’s improved only by the introduction of a fine young actor to the world.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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3/5
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The Latent Image
(2022)
|
Ben Turner
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It’s clever, it’s smug and it never quite lets us have the pay-off it was dangling before us.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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5/5
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Rotting in the Sun
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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We’ve become so used to high-spec filmmaking that this rough and raw indie curveball has gleefully smashed through our Everest window to draw our attention to this spicy, hot mess. And we are totally here ready for it.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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5/5
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The Queen of My Dreams
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
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ilmic, delectable and rewarding, this is accomplished and accessibly adult filmmaking, telling a rich story through the eyes of a director who’s both worldly wise and scrumptiously innovative.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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2/5
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Love in Country
(2023)
|
Ben Turner
|
If you’re looking for a sweeping love story cast against the backdrop of visceral war, this is not that film. It has all the right components, but budget constraints and a lack of talent have left this just a box ticking exercise. Gay war movie? Tick.
Posted Oct 07, 2023
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