Original Cinemaniac

Movie Reviews by Dennis Dermody

Saint Omer

            Quietly devastating film by Alice Diop about Rama (stunning Kayije Kagame), a writer and professor attending the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), a Franco-Senegalese graduate student, who murdered her 15-month-old baby on a beach in France.              Laurence is enigmatic…
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Takashi Miike’s Connect on Hulu

            One of my favorite filmmakers- the prolific, gloriously gozo Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) has directed a whacked-out new South Korean 6-part series on Hulu called Connect and it’s surreal, gory, suspenseful, action-packed, addictive insanity.              Ha Dong Soo (criminally…
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Hunt

            Hunt Is a propulsive, action-packed South Korean spy thriller directed and starring Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game).             It begins in Washington D.C. in 1983 during a botched assassination attempt on the South Korean president, whose authoritarian regime has caused student uprisings…
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The Menu

            By all means, make a reservation to see The Menu, a fiendishly enjoyable dark comedy, smartly directed by Mark Mylod and topped with a fabulously sardonic performance by Ralph Fiennes.             The plot concerns a group of well-heeled epicureans, arriving by…
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Bones and All

            Surprisingly romantic young “cannibals in love” movie from Luca Guadagnini (Call Me by Your Name). Based on a novel by Camille DeAngelis, it stars the charismatic Taylor Russell as Maren, whose father has deserted her because of her “affliction” of…
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