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2022 Drama

The Fabelmans

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B                This being the least-advertised Steven Spielberg movie of all time, I had no idea what it was about going into it. I never saw a trailer, a commercial, even a poster, nothing. I only knew the title and that it’s a Spielberg movie. So, I didn’t know if this was […]

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2022 Drama

Bones and All

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B-                Bones and All comes to us from director Luca Guadagnino, who I know from his godawful remake of Suspiria in 2018 (I know that film has a lot of fans, but I must respectfully say that you’re all out of your fucking minds). Between those two films, I now have […]

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2022 Drama

Amsterdam

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: D                Back when The Simpsons was funny, which was decades ago at this point, one of my favorite gags was when Grandpa Simpson would tell a story that didn’t go anywhere (“so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time…..now to take the ferry cost […]

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2022 Comedy Drama Mystery

Vengeance

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B+                Vengeance, the directorial debut of B.J. Novak, is a dark comedy and a refreshingly neutral social commentary about the blending of cultures from red and blue states. A surprisingly original film to (briefly) creep into about a thousand theaters nationwide, Vengeance is an engrossing and often funny film that offers […]

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2022 Drama

Where the Crawdads Sing

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: C                When I saw the trailer for Where the Crawdads Sing, I thought it looked like a highbrow version of the 1974 exploitation revenge flick Gator Bait. Unfortunately, not quite. While this movie’s plot does revolve around a reclusive swamp woman being accused of murder, she does not go on a […]

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2022 Drama

Elvis

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: C+                I’ll just say upfront that I don’t really care about Elvis. I don’t particularly dislike him, I just never understood the fascination with him. That leaves me in a bit of an awkward position with this review because I don’t know a damn thing on Elvis’ life (which will come […]

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2022 Action Drama Fantasy

The Northman

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B-                It takes either massive balls or a lot of stupidity or both to make a $90 million arthouse film and that is basically what director Robert Eggers has done with The Northman. Considering that few such productions exist nowadays that aren’t based on a comic book, I at least have […]

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2022 Drama

Redeeming Love

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: F                I’m giving this movie an F, but it’s a special kind of F. Sometimes, a film comes along that provides a completely new experience for me and makes me reconsider the depths of human insanity. This is one such film.  Redeeming Love is absolutely fucking bonkers. I’ve never seen a […]

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2021 Drama

West Side Story

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: C                I should probably just get this out of the way: I don’t like musicals. I especially don’t like dramatic musicals because I just can’t take a big dramatic moment seriously when people are breaking into song and dance. In West Side Story, I can’t feel the tension of an impending […]

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2021 Drama Worst of

The French Dispatch

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: F                I want to begin by quoting what is now my all-time favorite Rotten Tomatoes blurb. This gem comes to us from a positive review of The French Dispatch published by New City Film, a Chicago-based film criticism site: “An encomium to incunabula and marginalia and compulsive sketching and drenching details,.. […]