Tag: Mongrel Media

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Review: ‘The Humans’ uses horror tropes to heighten family drama despite not being a horror movie

The Humans

While a family dinner can be a daunting prospect, I don’t know that I would call it a horror story. Of course, there is always drama and expertly deployed guilt and passive aggression, but it’s not like a demon is going to crawl out of the walls and eat everyone. The Humans, directed and adapted by Stephen Karam from his own Tony Award-winning play of the same, uses that feeling, that spectre of something waiting to cause harm, to heighten and enhance the drama around family dinner, and it works to great effect.

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Review: ‘I’m Your Man’ brings a new twist to a familiar trope, to excellent effect

I'm Your Man

The exploration of love between a human and artificial intelligence is by no means a new concept. Whether we’re talking a voice in an earphone like Her, or a captive innocent as in Ex Machina, or any number of Star Trek plotlines, it has been done before. This time around, though, it’s not a matter of whether a machine can love, but whether having a partner made to order to fulfil all your needs will actually fulfil all of your needs.

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Review: ‘Nine Days’ is a beautiful achievement

Nine Days

This year, it’s a common theme that the films I truly love have been ones I expected to like but –for whatever reason– did not expect to love. Films with high concepts that I did not expect to leave me with tears in my eyes or with a renewed urge to look inward and assess my life and being. Nine Days is the third such film this year. A beautiful achievement from director Edson Oda (in his debut feature, no less), Nine Days treads a unique path to an emotional catharsis that will leave you with a renewed sense of hope.

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Review: ’12 Mighty Orphans’ is a perfectly suitable underdog sports drama

12 Mighty Orphans

Think about a sports drama. You know the one: where the main team is somehow disadvantaged in life, but they have a coach who believes in them even when they don’t believe in themselves. Where through the sport and the self-confidence that comes with playing well and winning, the kids turn their lives around and inspire the community around them. 12 Mighty Orphans is not the first time this story has been told, and it won’t be the last, but it’s a pretty good version of that story.

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