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  [REC] Filmed in Barcelona in 2006, REC is a low-budget found-footage shocker that spawned a successful 4-film franchise as well as an inevitable American remake ( Quarantine ). Directed by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza ( V/H/S Halloween ), REC --short for record-- finds a reality-news show reporter and her cameraman assigned to document the overnight activities of an emergency response team at a local fire station. The squad is accommodating enough although the fire chief warns the pair that it's likely to be a quiet night. "We spend more time rescuing pets than fighting fires ," he says.  Sure enough, Angela and Pablo--the field crew of  While You're Sleeping --settle into a routine, with the guys exercising and playing basketball as they wait for the call that will send them sliding down the firehouse pole and directly into the path of danger. Angela assures the men that she'll personally be relieved if no emergencies pop up, but she's a reporter, so of...
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  Midsommar Murders Although Midsommar is director Ari Aster's second feature (his first was Hereditary ), the film still feels like the handiwork of a seasoned professional. It is well-crafted, beautifully photographed, intellectually provocative and highly atmospheric. It's also a difficult film to fully embrace.  Florence Pugh (currently chewing the scenery in Netflix's East of Eden ) is cast as Dani, a high-strung graduate student whose insecurity is alienating her from longtime boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), also a grad student half-heartedly searching for a doctoral topic. Christian's best friends, obnoxious wanker Mark (Will Poulter) and ambitious Josh (William Jackson Harper) are--very vocally--fed up with Dani's neediness, but Swedish student, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) is a little more reserved. At least, he's not pressuring Christian to end his relationship, although, privately, Christian has just about reached his limit.  When Dani's bipol...
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  Sinners Nominated for 16 Academy Awards in 2025, director Ryan Coogler's  Sinners is a master class in modern filmmaking that transcends the horror genre and establishes itself as a touchstone of 21st century ingenuity. Probably best known for the hit films, Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever , Coogler has proven himself to be a reliable auteur of high-quality projects that repeatedly counter the narrative that movies led by black directors, and featuring mostly black casts, can't have widespread appeal to audiences across the board.  In Sinners , the identical twin Moore brothers--nicknamed Smoke and Stack--return to their hometown in rural Mississippi at the height of the Great Depression. Both survivors of the WW1 trenches, they've spent the last few years enjoying the upscale lives provided by their gangster bosses in crime-ridden Chicago. Having absconded with a princely chunk of change pilfered from their employers, the pair plans to open a juke j...
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Leviticus  In an Australian coastal town that's seen better days, two male classmates at the local high school find themselves falling in love. Despite the repressive nature of their cultish evangelical community, the boys wrestle playfully and make eyes at one another, stealing kisses and cigarettes when they break into an abandoned mill on the outskirts of town. Naim is the quiet, buttoned-down new kid on the block while blonde, curly-haired Ryan is a swaggering cocky boy from the other side of the tracks (to be fair, the whole town looks like it's on the other side of the tracks).  When Naim catches Ryan and the pastor's son, Hunter, engaged in a heavy-duty make-out session, he freaks out and heads straight to the parsonage to rat the boys out to Hunter's parents. Such is the father's distress that he summons a "deliverance healer"--a sort of exorcist --to cast out the entity causing the boys to engage in such unseemly behavior. As the healer chants a p...
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