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Psalms and Sleaze Line the End of Ti West’s Trilogy in ‘MAXXXINE’

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Celebrity and faith are at impassable odds in the capstone to Ti West’s surprise trilogy, MaXXXine. What started with ’70s shlock in X, then traveled back in time to WWI-era West Texas with the outstanding technicolor prequel Pearl, now arrives in 1980s Hollywood in MaXXXine. The titular character, consistently played with wild-eyed abandon and gnawing verve by Mia Goth across the three films, grapples with the events of her blood-soaked past, sheds her present porn star celebrity, and charges into a bright future as a legitimate actress. Read More

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Mia Goth Has the ‘X’-Factor in Devilish Prequel ‘PEARL’

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X Marks The Spot

Ladies and gentlemen, Mia Goth! In Ti West’s remarkably entertaining prequel to X (his other 2022 slasher), Goth plays a woman desperate to be a star but doomed never to be one. The irony is that Pearl should be the movie that propels Goth herself to proper stardom. She’s simply sensational. Featuring as the titular character, Goth steps back into the shoes of a sex-starved, corn-fed, farm-raised vixen with a predilection for murder by pitchfork. This time, West explores her youth, focusing on how her environs and lovelorn family dynamic transform her into the villain we later meet in X. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE’

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If you had told me that John Travolta would comeback from his recent Academy Award persona butchery (2014’s “Adele Dazeem”, 2015’s repulsively awkward Scar-Jo sneak-a-kiss) by playing a sand-blasted moral compass in a Ti West Western (a Western, it must be noted, that is of the genre through and through, absent of the horror flair that has, up to this point, characterized the filmmaker’s oeuvre), I woulda spit my cud. But Travolta is as present for In a Valley of Violence as it is a corn-fed, all-American, organically certified Western. Consider my head scratched. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE’

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If you had told me that John Travolta would comeback from his recent Academy Award persona butchery (2014’s “Adele Dazeem”, 2015’s repulsively awkward Scar-Jo sneak-a-kiss) by playing a sand-blasted moral compass in a Ti West Western (a Western, it must be noted, that is of the genre through and through, absent of the horror flair that has, up to this point, characterized the filmmaker’s oeuvre), I woulda spit my cud. But Travolta is as present for In a Valley of Violence as it is a corn-fed, all-American, organically certified Western. Consider my head scratched. Read More