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All film posts on Movies All Around
A fantastic musical film about a bloodthirsty plant that gets its owner to keep feeding it, Little Shop Of Horrors features a great cast and is packed with earworms. When Little Shop Of Horrors was first released on VHS tape, my friends and I were obsessed with it. We planned a performance of our own,…
A quiet film about an older man who decides to walk across England to save his friend in hospice, The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry encourages you to think about the small things. It is always fun for me when I start a movie and realize that I’m with friends. Jim Broadbent, who I have…
A stylistic Tarantino film about an actor and his stunt double in the 1960s, Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood will make you look at Tinseltown in a whole new way. The first Quentin Tarantino film I ever saw was Pulp Fiction. I watched it in the movie theater and promptly returned for a second…
A brooding period drama about a man who believes his cousin’s wife committed murder, but meets and falls in love with her, My Cousin Rachel feels muted and flat. I have mentioned this before, but not every book should be turned into a film. The mediums are very different, and while you can describe every…
A fictionalized retelling of a famous historical life, Henry VIII and His Six Wives does an excellent job of covering each of Henry’s relationships while giving you a little bit of insight into each wife. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. If you are at all familiar with the Broadway show SIX, the television show…
Filled with theatricality, Blue Moon, about lyricist Lorenz Hart on the night former partner Richard Rodgers opens Oklahoma! with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, is like watching a play in three acts. I was raised on the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein. If The King And I wasn’t playing, Carousel was on. If it was too silent…
A subtle and emotionally layered film about an absent film director father and his estranged daughters, Sentimental Value is extraordinarily styled and deeply personal. When I notice that Stellan Skarsgård is in a film, I am immediately interested. Whether it’s Good Will Hunting, Mamma Mia!, or Angels & Demons, he is an actor who leaves…
A modern Cyrano story where a sweet but inarticulate teen asks a quiet nerd to help him write letters to the girl he loves, The Half Of It is a cute YA watch. Whether you’ve read the 1897 play of Cyrano de Bergerac or not, the story is a familiar one. A man is in…
A dystopian sci-fi thriller about a facility in which members live to avoid outside contamination and hope to win the coveted lottery, The Island is a story that gets better the longer you watch. There are some really entertaining movies about a dystopian future. The Hunger Games series, The Matrix series, The Long Walk, Snowpiercer…
A sweet coming-of-age film about a boy and a girl who live next to each other and manage the ins and outs of puppy love as kids, Flipped is both nostalgic and relatable. Rob Reiner has directed some of the best films we have. The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, Misery, and a personal nostalgic…
Contemplative and understated, The Children Act, about a judge who decides medically dubious cases for minors, slowly blossoms into something unexpected. Movies based on books can be hit or miss. You have so much source material and richness in print that, when you try to translate it into another medium, it can be challenging to…
A heartwarming film about an autistic teen musician who befriends a former pop star, I Used To Be Famous is fairly predictable, but it will put a smile on your face. There are some films out there that stick with you because they are different types of feel-good buddy comedies. I love both About A…
