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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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Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2 (2020) – Braaaaiiiiiinnnnss

Released: 18th April
Seen: 20th April

You know, I’ve tackled a fair few streaming networks over the years. I’ve dealt with Netflix originals, Stan originals and Shudder originals but I’ve somehow managed to avoid Disney Plus originals because none of them really leapt out at me. I almost watched that Lady and the Tramp remake but… well, I suffered through three Disney Remakes in one year, I’m allowed to skip one of them. There are a few original films on there but I figured they weren’t going to be that important for me to need to look through… and then the world decided to malfunction and every cinema closed, so I may as well throw the Disney Plus originals into my diet because why the hell not?

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My Mentor the Serial Killer: Tony (2019) – It’s A Killer

Released: 29th November 2019
Seen: 19th April

About a month ago today I received a list of films from The Movie Agency, 6 in total that I thought would take me a long time to get through because I still had a bunch of movies in the cinema to check out and a ton of Netflix stuff so I was going to work through them at about one a week and see where that got me… and then someone stupidly read out loud from the contagious disease version of the Necronomicon and I found myself stuck at home with nothing in the cinemas and needing to do something to kill time for the next month. On the whole I have to say that these films have been interesting experiences, probably not films I would’ve selected to watch and review on my own but each one did offer me something interesting even if I didn’t like all of them. From the very start though I knew there was one film I wanted to save until last. Partially because it was the longest and I am nothing if not predictable in enjoying shorter films but also because it seemed like it was going to be the best and I wanted a high note… of course, having seen Necrologies and fallen in love with Pozu I now can’t see this as the high note of the list I had provided to me, but it’s still really really good.

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The Hunt (2020) – The Most Dangerous Movie

Released: 13th March
Seen: 18th April

The Hunt Info

The most controversial movie of the last decade is easily The Hunt. Easily, just based upon the reaction its trailer got alone it will go down as being one of the most controversial films in history, alongside its controversy cousin The Interview. Much like The Interview, the film became a major discussion piece throughout pop culture due to its subject matter and the trailer used to promote it. What else makes it just like The Interview? The fact that the controversy was obscenely stupid on every front and was a vast overreaction by everyone involved. Guess who gets to talk about politics in a review of a film in the year 2020? BECAUSE THIS YEAR DOESN’T SUCK ENOUGH ALREADY!

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Mistaken (2017) – Mistake

Released: 2nd Feburary 2017
Seen: 16th April

Ever since 9/11, the world has been different. That right there is what we would call “The Biggest Understatement Of All Time” but it needs to be said. This was particularly obvious in the days and weeks following it but what also followed was a ton of films about how we, as a society, would handle the crisis. If you want a really good in-depth look at the various forms of 9/11 media that formed in the years since that day, Lindsay Ellis did a two–part video essay about 9/11 based media that’s fascinating to see. What’s less fascinating to see is the film Mistaken, which is a shame because it has a brilliant concept and does less than nothing with it.

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Love Wedding Repeat Header Image
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Love Wedding Repeat (2020) – I Want A Divorce!

Released: 10th April
Seen: 14th April

Love Wedding Repeat Info

Love Wedding Repeat is one of the blandest, stupidest and most pathetic attempts at a rom-com that I’ve ever seen. There is no other way to even start this, I don’t feel like trying to find some esoteric tangent that I could go on, the film is bad and pathetic and I do not like it for even a second. You want a film to make you hate the concept of marriage in totality? Have I got a film for you? A pathetic film that sells itself on looking pretty and having attractive actors with British and Italian accents say things that they believe are jokes but under the faux-pretty surface lies one of the ugliest messes I’ve ever laid eyes on.

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Necrologies (2018) – Lots Of Fun

Released: 7th March (DVD release)
Seen: 10th April

One thing I’m noticing about films I am being sent to review is that a lot of people want to try the Anthology film as an early work, and I totally get why. It’s a good way to get a bunch of first-time filmmakers to make little short films and string them together without needing to come up with a 90-minute long plot. You just need a good wrap around and a basic idea of the kind of film you’re making and voila, you’ve got yourself an anthology. It’s really hard to do a great anthology film though, I’d probably say Creepshow and VHS are the gold standards of the genre and over the last few weeks, we’ve stumbled upon some anthology films that would probably just barely make the Bronze ranking… well, today I have an easy Silver medalist of Anthology films, it needs a bit of work to get to gold but it’s still wildly impressive on its own merits.

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Horse Girl (2020) – Coming In In All Directions

Released: 7th February
Seen: 9th April

Normally when I write these reviews I do an opening paragraph that is intended to set the scene. Either I talk about the original text that inspired the film or I’ll talk about a cinematic trend or, in one case, talk about paint drying to create a subversive joke that can lead into the bulk of the review. Partially this is for context and it’s also done so that if people are scrolling through my page, the opening paragraph might catch their eye and make them want to read more. So, how does someone write an interesting and appropriate opening paragraph for a movie like Horse Girl, a film about a woman who is slowly being overtaken by her serious mental illness that starts as simple little obsessions and culminates in dressing like a peach-ninja and having imaginary sex with the nerdy guy from Criminal Minds? I sat here and tried to think of such an opening and ended up not having any idea, so that’s why you got that tiny bit of information about how I write this… it’s the most interesting thing I could think of because I do not know how on earth I can begin to explore this one.

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