Review – Phantom Thread (2017)

by Armando Vanegas

The 90’s independent film boom was quite a ride as there were so many unique voices that would be hard to replicate. Not only that, a lot of these filmmakers and their works just carried so much swagger to them that you had to impressed by how confident they came across. Many of them seemed to stay with made them work, but Paul Thomas Anderson seems to always want to challenge himself in a way that sets him apart from the pack as he seems to have a tendency to get out of his comfort zone. While I wasn’t crazy about his last movie Inherent Vice, it was still one of those movies that you had to admire for its weirdness even if it doesn’t totally come together. This was in some ways a return to form for him in some ways even if this isn’t a movie I can say that I totally could embrace. When I first saw this in the theater earlier this year, I remember being really impressed by how well made it was, but that’s to be expected from Anderson. This is still apparent on a second viewing. It’s also different and unpredictable in some ways so it had that going for it in addition to excellent performances from Daniel-Day Lewis and Vicky Krieps.

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Review – Fantastic Beasts : The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

by Old King Clancy

I’ll be honest and say that the Harry Potter series is not ‘sacred’ to me in any way, but the books were a strong part of my childhood and the films even more so. So I’m a definite fan of the franchise and even enjoyed the first Fantastic Beasts film bringing us back into the Wizarding World. So it’s difficult for me to call The Crimes Of Grindelwald a bad movie when there’s little to say that it isn’t.

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Review – Happy Death Day (2017) **31 Days of Horror*

by Old King Clancy

Ever since Groundhog Day, time-loop movies have had to deal with the comparison and indeed when it was advertised, Happy Death Day looked like Groundhog Day: Slasher Style, and while that did turn out to be true, it also got some good reviews calling it an entertaining horror/comedy. With the sequel getting an official release date a few days ago, I decided to kick off this year’s October viewings with this flick and see if it was as fun as advertised.

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Review – Tales of Halloween (2015) **31 Days of Horror**

‘Tales of Halloween’ – The Best Halloween Anthology since ‘Trick ’r Treat’

by Nile Fortner

With films like V/H/S, The ABCs of Death, and Creepshow, Halloween is one of the most favored times of the year to invest in horror anthologies. Michael Dougherty, director of the upcoming 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters, kicked the horror anthologies back into high gear with his 2009 cult classic, Trick ’r Treat. Tales of Halloween follows in the same footsteps as Dougherty’s film of numerous stories being told and intertwining together on Halloween night. Only Tales of Halloween has a total of eleven different directors coming together to make one film. Much like Trick ’r Treat, Tales of Halloween keeps the spirit of Halloween and I’m sure it’ll be a cult classic amongst scare buffs.

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