Tag: Prime Video

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Nefarious (2023)

Nefarious (2023) is a ninety-seven minute propaganda film for Christian fundamentalism.

A psychiatrist is draughted in to evaluate the competence of a convicted serial killer before his planned execution. Is he sane or is he, as he claims, the demon Nefarious?

Most of the film is a two-hander, psychiatrist and demon, skeptic and believer, debating the epic war between good and evil, logic and faith, like evangelical preachers spitting evocations from their respective pulpits.

An exuberant, verging on the histrionic, performance from Sean Patrick Flanery can’t disguise the faith at the core of the writing. It’s like watching The Birth of a Nation (1915) now. There’s something deeply unpleasant about the world-view being given a voice.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14537248/

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Licorice Pizza (2021)

Paul Thomas Anderson captures the feral exuberance of the early seventies, as the precocious 15-year-old child actor, and natural hustler, Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) pursues the 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim), “the woman he’s going to marry”.

Inspired by the life of Anderson’s friend Gary Goetzman, the story bubbles up rather than unfolding. It’s joyous in many ways, full with the kind of optimism none of us can feel anymore.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11271038/

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The Devil’s Hour (2022– )

The Devil’s Hour is a quantum riddle. Writer Tom Moran twists the strands of a nightmarish murder-mystery into a tight rope, wraps that into a ball, then slices open the ball. The story lives somewhere on that cut. Worth seeing.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14379784/

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Hacks – S:1 (2021– )

Old clashes with new as veteran stand-up mentors opinionated writer, blacklisted for an “inappropriate” message on Twitter. A charming character based funny, worth an afternoon of your time.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11815682/

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The Boys – S:1-3 (2019– )

A grim collection of vigilantes, with a single-minded hatred of soops, try to hold the “out of control” super-humans to account, as well as the corporation that runs them. It’s bloody and gruesome and hilarious, with a politically satirical soul.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190634/

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Samaritan (2022)

Good versus bad simplicity plays out as you’d expect, with an obvious reversal at the end of the second act. There’s a reactionary tone to the plot that adds to the heroic logic.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5500218/

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Deep Water (2022)

A couple, one manic the other melancholic, torment each other with masochistic love. It’s two hours that feels like three, with a dark and twisted soul from Adrian Lyne of Fatal Attraction (1987) fame.

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The Tender Bar (2021)

This charming “memoir” is an unexpected gem of a movie that’ll make you feel like the world has balance. It doesn’t but you get a glimpse of what it might look like.

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Carnival Row – S:1 (2019– )

This steam punk noir manages to weave a murder mystery into a love story, in fact several love stories. It balances out the passion with a heavy dose of political intrigue, that hinges on a nineteenth century xenophobia against the races of mythical creatures who live on Carnival Row. It’s well constructed if a little slow on occasion. Put me in mind of China Miéville’s Bas-Lag series.