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Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story (2020) – I’m Begging For Mercy

Released: 30th March
Seen: 3rd May

In 2004 Cyntoia Brown shot and killed Johnny Allen, this is an indisputable fact. What was always in dispute was motive, the prosecution said that she was a prostitute who robbed and murdered an innocent john while he was asleep and Cyntoia claimed she feared for her life after being sexually assaulted. At trial Cyntoia was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 51 years which would’ve made her 67 at the time of her potential release. However, thanks to the governor, she received clemency in 2019 and was released from prison. Now, those of you who are good at math will have caught onto this but… did I mention she was 16 at the time?

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Dangerous Lies (2020) – LIEEEEEEEES

Released: 30th April
Seen: 2nd May

About a year ago I did a review for a film called Secret Obsession which was basically Netflix picking up the scraps left over from a Lifetime all-you-can-eat-buffet and turning it into something meant to resemble a film. It wasn’t exactly good and you could kind of tell what network it was made for originally but I figured “Oh well, if Netflix does a Lifetime movie every now and then that could be entertaining. Sometimes those are campy enough for a laugh” and Netflix apparently heard me and decided to make an even blander wannabe lifetime movie… I’m so ready for 2020 to be over.

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Spenser Confidential (2020) – Not So Condidential

Released: 6th March
Seen: 28th April

The buddy cop movie is a classic and reliable genre for a reason, the formula is so simple that if you pull it off right you will have something fun. You take two very different people, an Odd Couple if you will, and then you put them in cop outfits and make them do cop stuff. This is not a hard concept to execute and yet Netflix has already kinda screwed it up with the disastrous Coffee and Kareem which still haunts my nightmares which I have a lot more of now because I sleep more often because what the hell else does one do during a pandemic? Anyway, since Netflix either knew Coffee and Kareem was going to hurt or because they figured that no one would care if they did the same general thing again they made another buddy cop movie and this time they did an adequate job, IMPROVEMENT!

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Extraction (2020) – Familiar But Still Good

Released: 24th April
Seen: 27th April

It feels like 2020 is the year when certain actors need to prove that they can survive outside of the Marvel ecosphere. Namely, the original Avengers who are either no longer in the main series or are on their way out. The year started with RDJ making everyone worry that maybe he was going to be the big casualty of this with his devastatingly painful performance in Dolittle, we recently got the confirmation that Chris Evans is probably going to be fine with his work in Defending Jacob and now we come to Chris Hemsworth, who has also been working outside of the boundaries of the MCU for a while but keeps picking projects that no one likes (MiB: International) or no one sees (Bad Times At The El Royale). So, here he is teaming up with a first-time director who used to be a stunt coordinator and one of the Russo brothers to create a “White stuck in a foreign country shooting all of the bad guys” movie. It might not be great, but it’s pretty damn good.

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The Fanatic (2020) – I’m Not A Fan

Released: 30th March
Seen: 27th April

Sometimes a movie is so instantly deemed “God awful excrement” that I’m almost eager to see it, just to know if everyone is overreacting. At the end of August last year, The Fanatic came out in America and when I heard about it, I patiently waited for it to come down to Australia when I’d have the chance to see it, but it never came. Possibly because it made $3000 in 52 cinemas, which is aggressively bad, but I knew eventually I would have to see it somehow. Sure enough, the movie got a DVD release on the 30th of March, meaning it’s a 2020 movie for me and I would finally have the chance to see it (and it’d be eligible for an end of the year list for me, so that’s nice). Then it popped up on Google Play and was about 6 bucks to rent which… yeah, more than I should’ve spent. I should’ve just not bothered, I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment.

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The Willoughbys (2020) – Home Alone: Extreme Edition


Released: 22nd April
Seen: 24th April

So, I know right now we’re all a little frazzled thanks to the mild apocalypse we’ve got going on. The people who are probably most in need of a respite from the insanity are the parents of young kids who are just running about without anything to watch since they’ve probably sat through Trolls: World Tour and Onward about 17 times each. Well, let me offer something that might delight them… and might make them work out ways to murder their parents, but they will be quiet for an hour and a half so you can decide if that trade-off is worthwhile.

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Circus of Books (2020) – The Happiest Show On Earth

Released: 23rd April
Seen: 23rd April

In 1960 at 8230 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, a little bookstore named Book Circus opened up. Loaded with hardcore gay pornography, the store managed to keep the doors open until 1982 when Barry Mason found out that the store was in trouble and wound up buying it. One brief name change later and the little porno store owned by a cocaine addict would turn into the mom and pop shop Circus of Books, still dealing in gay pornography and run by a former special effects engineer and a heavily religious journalist. It would become one of the most important hotspots in gay culture and would be there for a lot of essential moments in queer history. This documentary tells that story through the eyes of the daughter of Barry and his wife Karen and it tells it beautifully.

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Reel Redemption (2020) – Faith Films Redeemed

Released: 1st January
Seen: 22nd April

I’ve made it no secret on this blog that I have something of a problem with Christian Films. Not because of the Christian element, I firmly believe that every single community deserves to see themselves on screen, but because lately they’ve been kind of… oh, what’s the term? God-Awful wastes of the time I have left, that’s it. In general, I look for them to show some form of quality filmmaking and instead I tend to find a lot of the films are little more than sermons that wrap themselves up in the blanket defence of faith. What I’ve been wanting for some time now is for someone to show me why I should give this growing subgenre any semblance of respect… enter Tyler Smith’s documentary/video essay Reel Redemption to make such an argument.

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