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F1’s Big-Screen Thrills Slicked by a Boneheaded Script

Apple’s high-speed Formula One blockbuster bid to break into large-format moviemaking – complete with Hollywood stars, slick, expensive production details, a deluge of product placement, and a who’s who of behind-the-scenes legends (Jerry Bruckheimer! Hans Zimmer!) – doesn’t crash out in flames, but it hardly mounts the podium the way this $300M movie hopes to. What we get is a largely cliché-ridden sports drama about grizzled veteran driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) and his cocky rookie partner Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), who have to overcome their differences to get their new team, APX GP, helmed by Javier Bardem’s unconventional Ruben Cervantes, out of first gear and actually winning races. Read More

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‘THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN’ Examines the Tragic Hilarity of a Country at War With Itself

A Very Civil War

The year is 1923. In Inisherin, a small, remote island off the east coast of Ireland, the days are filled with an almost apocalyptic ennui. From across the bitter cold of the Atlantic, the report of gunfire and cannons signal the ongoing Irish Civil War. Ireland’s Civil War came on the heels of their War of Independence from Great Britain. And claimed even more lives. It pit brothers and friends against one another, forcing allies who had fought alongside each other just the year prior against England at each other’s throats. The war was deeply personal and subsequently bitter and bloody. Read More