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The Sitter could be better. Some situations are very forced, but you can still have some fun watching it. The short runtime helps not making the movie dull, but "The Sitter" is just a poor copy of the brilliant 80's comedy "Adventures in Babysitting".
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I watching this movie in an old TNT show called TNT Delirium and I didn't like it. The witch looked like an old fart.
It's a very low budgeted production, the movie doesn't add anything new to the genre and made me sleepy.
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SyFy channel flick featuring the traditionally bad CGI monsters that seem to float over the ground. "Deadly Descent" manages to be worse than "The Rage of the Yeti".
It's full of clichés, there's tension between the young soldiers, a little drama and even a love triangle. All unnecessary and forced. The skiing scenes and the surreal ending save the movie from getting a zero.
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Psych:9 has almost no outdoor scenes. It has an interesting premise, but the story isn't well developed. The film's pace is limping and the ending inconclusive.
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In 1994, teenager Harlan Diehl killed his whole family. Years later, a group of students decide to make a movie reproducing the massacre. They disappear under mysterious circumstances and the police officer played by Christian Slater investigates the case.
"Playback" is well produced, has a good plot, but it drags a little in the long final chase near the end.
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The first time I watched this animated short was on the Cars DVD, which my son received as a gift from his grandfather. Then I watched it other times, mostly with my son, who loved it.
This short film is great ! It's funny, sweet and very creative. One of Pixar's best.
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Pixar's jurassic animation (from 1987).
It tells the story of a unicycle inside a bike shop. When night falls, the unicycle dreams of being in the spotlight, juggling balls alongside a clown also balancing on a unicycle. After the presentation (in the dream) ends, he comes to his senses and goes back to the back of the bike shop.
This short is just nice. Nothing more.
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Zack Snyder's hallucinogenic madness. It bombed badly at the box office, and the film must have cost a lot, but it has everything it needs to become a cult movie over time.
Sucker Punch doesn't stand out for its screenplay, but rather for its visuals. Each of Babydoll's hallucinations yields a fantastic little story with dreamlike and surreal images. The soundtrack is also very interesting and fits perfectly with the movie, just like the soundtrack from Watchmen. All the songs are covers, some performed by the film's actresses, with the exception of Bjork's "Army of Me".
The DVD extras included several animated short films: one for each Babydoll story.
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Three guys hate their bosses so much that they want to kill them. Nick works for the authoritarian Harken (Kevin Spacey), Kurt is employed by the cocaine addict Pellitt (Colin Farrell) and Dale is the victim of the sexual advances of his perverted boss Julia (Jennifer Aniston).
As much as they desire, the 3 guys don't have the balls to kill anyone, so they decide to hire a professional killer.
Horrible Bosses is very funny and has some politically incorrect jokes by today's standards. The cast is great, but the highlight is Jennifer Aniston playing the perverted and foul-mouthed doctor, a role very different from what she usually plays.
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From the stories I heard about the real Studio 54, I thought this movie could be better. The way it is, it's harmless.
54 has a good soundtrack with songs of the time, but it obviously couldn't miss that ! It also features cool costumes, several well-known actors (including a Ron Jeremy cameo) and an 80-year-old dancer who dies of an overdose in the most dramatic moment of the film.
In the endgame, 54 is an average movie to spend some time.
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Placebo gig recorded at the Brixon Academy. I have to say that I only knew one Placebo song at the time, but I watched the whole concert, 'cause it was good. They also covered Nirvana's "All Apologies".
Good band in a show with a very rock vibe. A kind of missing link between the Cure and Muse.
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This Scooby-Doo adventure brings together a good script with funny moments. Technically the animation is very good too.
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Pixar animated short film that won an Oscar in 1998. It's the one about the old man playing chess with himself. Honestly, I didn't think this short was all that great.
Trivia: The old man makes a cameo in Toy Story 2.
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The animation is excellent for a 1989 Pixar short, that is, 5 years before Toy Story. You can even see influences of this cartoon in Pixar's first feature film.
Unlike Tin Toy, whose animation hasn't aged well, Knick Knack remains well done even by today's standards.
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Simon is a vampire who visits suicide websites to choose his victims. He arranges a meeting and convinces the person, who was going to commit suicide anyway, to give him his/her blood. He extracts the blood from the person, who dies, and drinks it from a bottle.
This poetic foray into the world of vampires suffers from an ending that leaves several questions to be answered. Vampire has a slow pace typical of indie productions. It's a Canadian movie directed by a Japanese.
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This review may contain spoilers.
84 hours of footage from the Apollo 18 mission, which officially never existed, are posted on a website. What we are about to watch is a compilation of this footage. This is another "found footage" movie, but I liked this one.
The premise of Apollo 18 is very interesting. The beginning of the movie is a bit dull, but once the American astronauts learn that they are not alone on the Moon, the film gets really cool.
Apollo 18 could be even better, but it's a good picture.
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I grew up reading Marvel comics and the first super hero movie I watched was Christopher Reeve's Superman. Since then I imagined one day to see an Avengers's movie. It took a long time, but the day has finally come and thankfully by the hands of Marvel itself.
Ant-Man and Wasp were replaced by Hawkeye and Black Widow, but Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk leave no doubt that this is the first incarnation of the super group. The villain Loki too. He was the villain in the first story of the Avengers.
Those who haven't seen the previous Marvel movies, especially Thor and Captain America, might be a little lost at the beginning.
The Avengers is an amazing movie for those who enjoy Marvel superheroes. I watched it in the theater, rewatched it on DVD, watched it again on TV and finally bought the Blu-Ray. A perfect 10.
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I watched Speed Racer when I was a kid. I arriving home from school and sitting in front of the TV to watch the adventures of Speed and his friends.
I knew by heart what was the meaning of every letter in the Mach 5. My favorite character, besides Speed, was the mysterious Racer X. I still have a Hot Wheels miniature of the Mach 5, that I bought when I was already grown-up, but it doesn't have all those marvelous gadgets.
Speed Racer was probably my first anime, but it wasn't called "anime" at the time. It was a cartoon like many others, but this one was made in Japan. Very different from the Hanna Barbera stuff I used to watch. It brings me lots of good memories.
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This is another one of those movies where a woman has to unravel the past to help a ghost to rest. But this one is really weak and full of plot holes.
The plot of the movie is really flawed. No matter how much the college students at IMDB look for clues here and there, the story doesn't add up. Gabriele Anwar, who I from that 1993 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers plays the protagonist. Forest Whitaker, poor guy, could find something better to do.
The movie has a good production and a reasonable atmosphere of suspense, but the lousy script ruins everything.
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Famous Japanese movie that really deserves its fame. It tells the story of 42 students who are taken to an island to fight to the death. There can only be one survivor.
Battle Royale influenced books/movies, like The Hunger Games, and video games, like the beloved Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. Its simple story of deathmatch with a focus on survival is a perfect opportunity for violent and realistic deaths, something that The Hunger Games franchise doesn't show.
The idea of the necklace is not original: 1991's Wedlock has a similar idea. Adults taking revenge on unruly students by killing them reminds me of the controversial "Class of 1984", but in that movie the teacher took justice into his own hands.
Ultimately, Battle Royale is a great movie with plenty of action and good performances by the young cast, who seem to be much younger than the "kids" in The Hunger Games. There are also the graphic deaths which are awesome !
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The dragons are rarely seen, there is a lot of stupid chitchat and the duels with the dragons are really lame. A very weak film. The end credits clearly state that the film was based on Herman Melville's Moby Dick, as I was wondering.
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Bizarre Japanese film about a little boy haunted by a giant rabbit costume, but nothing is quite what it seems in this weird movie.
The scary giant rabbit serves as a bait for this Japanese horror drama about a young woman distraught over her father's new marriage and feeling guilty for causing the accident that killed her future stepmother. Tormented is a bizarre puzzle.
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This review may contain spoilers.
Wrecked, despite being short in runtime, isn't "Buried" or "127 Hours", just to compare to similar movies from the same year. It's inferior to both and the film drags on a bit without us knowing what is reality and what is delirium in Adrien Brody's mind.
What could have been a surprise, the fact that he's a victim and not a criminal, didn't surprise me at all. The film made it quite clear to me that Adrien Brody wasn't a criminal. In the news listened in the car radio when they say that there was another man besides the box, I had the feeling that Adrien Brody was that man.
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Terry Gilliam's madness about a troupe of shabby people who put on a traveling show in London. The group consists of the immortal Dr. Parnassus (Peter O'Toole), his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), his sidekick Anton (Andrew Garfield) and Austin Powers' Mini-Me (Verne Troyer). They are ed by the mysterious Tony (Heath Ledger, in his last work), who missed his memory after being hit on the head.
This dreamlike film by Terry Gilliam is very reminiscent of Baron Munchausen, but it lacks a better screenplay and the fun of the Baron's movie. What's left is the beautiful art direction (nominated for an Oscar, along with costume design) and the good performance of the cast.
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The Revenant is a bizarre mix of horror, comedy and drama. It's more of a comedy, but there are just a few really funny scenes. The movie is too long and more serious than I expected. It could have been pure fun like "Zombies of Mass Destruction", but the director wanted to intellectualize the movie a little and it ended up being a bit boring.
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I guess I'm one of the few mortals who like this movie. I own the blue disc which features the theatrical and extended version😊
It's an FX extravaganza and the scene in the ending credits pointed to a possible sequel, but the movie was panned by critics and the sequel was shelved.
Trivia: Angela Basset plays Amanda Waller in this movie, a character who later appeared in the DCU played by Viola Davis.
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The Raven is a good experience, especially for those who know the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Nice cinematography and homages to plenty of Poe's stories. Despite the critics, I thought John Cusack delivered a good performance in the role of the alcoholic writer.
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Four related stories set in the same neighborhood during Halloween. The film also has a prologue and an epilogue featuring the same woman.
The stories in general are weak, with the exception of the unexpected ending of the third and fourth stories. The 4th story is the best. The epologue is also interesting, as are some characters and scenes that connect one story to the other.
You can tell, by the comic book style, that "Trick 'r Treat" wanted to be a Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt. It doesn't work, but the result is average.
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This is not a typical Phil Collins concert and I didn't know that 😕He sings only songs that he used to listen when he was a teenager. I was fooled by the title. I thought "Going Back" referred to his early career, not to his early years 🤔
That said, there are no songs by Phil Collins or Genesis in this concert. He sings songs like "Papa was a Rolling Stone", "Dancing in the Streets" and "My Girl". Not bad, but far from what I was expecting.
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Funny comedy of manners with bits of drama and romance.
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3rd entry of the original Fly trilogy. The fly doesn't appear at any point, only in a brief flashback from the first or second movie. The photography is in black and white, like in Return of the Fly. Despite the plot holes, this movie has its charm, even though it's much inferior to the first two.
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One fine day, zombies begin to appear in the island town of Port Gamble. According to the TV, the culprit is a terrorist named Mohammed Mustafa who released a virus on the island. The plot doesn't give much attention to how people became zombies; what matters is how the citizens of the small town act in the midst of this zombie epidemic.
The protagonist Frida is American, of Iranian descent, and is always mistaken for an Iraqi. There is a gay man, accompanied by his partner, who decides to tell his mother that he's gay just as she turns into a zombie. There's also the Republican and the Democrat politicians looking for votes, the little church run by a retrograde minister, and the typical American country couple with their son who has a crush on Frida.
ZMD is a terrific political and social satire ! It's full of dark humor. It's entertaining and at the same time has tense scenes, such as tortures. It's also gory and funny. Some scenes reminded me of Braindead. There are also references to other zombie flicks. I liked it a lot, I just thought the end could be better
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Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is back in this sequel to the second movie (the third one was a prequel).
This 4th installment is nice and short. The special effects are good and the film is quite violent, with Selene playing surgeon and sticking her hands inside people's bellies.
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"Snow White and the Huntsman" is based on the classic story of Snow White, but aimed at adults. There's also a more comedic version of Snow White, which is "Mirror, Mirror" starring Julia Roberts, which was released in theaters shortly before this one.
"Snow White and the Huntsman" has beautiful visuals. The scenes in the fairy kingdom, the duel with a giant who looks like something out of Lord of the Rings, and the Dark Forest are technically impeccable. It's no wonder this movie was nominated for the visual effects Oscar.
On the other hand, the story sometimes drags a bit during the two hours of runtime. The beautiful landscapes are from Wales, where the movie was shot.
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This movie is really a delirium by Mojica. It tells the story of a man who has constant nightmares where he loses his wife to Coffin Joe.
Although "Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind" has little originality and uses lots of footage from another movies directed by Mojica, the crazy plot makes sense. It's worth watching at least to rewatch anthological scenes from other Coffin Joe's movies and for the twist at the end.
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Pixar animated short from 2008 that, according to IMDB, was released together with Wall-E.
A rabbit, angry because his owner didn't give him a carrot, rebels against the magician and organizes a duel of magic top hats. A cool animation, but that's all.
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The Adventures of Tintin is a masterpiece of motion capture technology, which transforms real actors into CGI characters. The animation is beautiful and Tintin's pursuit of Zacharias's falcon through the streets of Morocco is breathtaking. Although technically sublime, the story is just average.
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This review may contain spoilers.
Remake of the '90's classic based on a story by Philip K. Dick. It's more faithful to the book than Schwarza's sci-fi actioner, but it's less entertaining. There's nothing of Mars here. The story is basically the same, despite the change of settings.
This remake brings back the woman with three breasts, in a different context; the "catfight" between Lori and Melina (Jessica Biel); the implant (in the original it was in the nose and here in the hand); the man who shows up in the middle of the film to say that Quaid is still sitting in a chair at Rekal (the sequence with the original bald guy was much better than the current one); and there is a good prank in the airport scene, where we see a woman just like the one in Schwarza's disguise in the original movie, but here she's a real woman: Quaid is disguised as another guy.
This remake left out the ventriloquist dummy taxi driver and the leader of the mutants: that "psychic baby" who was sheltered in Matthias' body. In fact, the mutants were replaced by "terrorists" from the colony, but we have an army of robots here worthy of Attack of the Clones.
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The flies look more like giant mosquitoes, are VERY poorly made and appear little in the film. Most of the movie is wasted on fruitless conversations among the local rednecks, in a vain attempt by the director to arouse viewers' interest in their boring dramas and lives.
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The first half of the movie is kinda boring, but the twist from the middle to the end is worth it. It took me a while to understand what was happening and guess who was dead and who was alive in this story.
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Giallo is not in pair with Argento's older movies. It has a very dull police plot, but it excels in the gore, like in the scene where the serial killer cuts the model's finger off.
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Remake of the '80's movie of the same name that is barely inspired in the original "April Fool's Day". The original is better, but this movie at least entertained me. There are worse remakes than this one.
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I watching this movie in a show called "Disney Shorts". It was originally released with Ratatouille and I think it's better than Ratatouille.
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Great Pixar short that shows 2 "little ghosts": one personifying the night and the other the day. Beautiful and funny.
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As I watched this movie on TV, the 3D was removed from the title.
Girls in bikinis, sharks on the loose in a salt lake and ill-intentioned rednecks. What more could you want from a B shark movie?
After the end credits there's a music video with the cast and scenes from the movie.
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This Asylum production stands out for the absurdity of the plot, the creativity amid budgetary restrictions and a certain homage to the Nazi exploitations of the '70s.
We have the famous Nazi surgeries, with scenes of scalping and even the removal of a woman's brain ! When they manage to hide the red cellophane paper, it's cool 😂
There's also the "shower scene" of the girls. The bath doesn't actually happen, but a nazi officer rips off the blouse of one of the girls, exposing her breasts. After that, the soldiers gang rape her, but obviously this scene is not shown in full. It's impossible to get more exploitation than that !
This mix of B-movie science fiction, trash and Nazi exploitation puts this movie in the "so bad that it's good" category. I liked it !
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It's from the same director of "Jeeper Creepers", but Rosewood Lane is closer to a thriller than horror. The screenplay left a lot of questions without answer. Minus one star for that.
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Whiteout doesn't bring anything new and the plot is also quite predictable. By the way, the "whiteout" of the title refers to ice or snow storm.
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Just an ordinary thriller.
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A couple with a young son moves into a house in a remote area. They are neighbors of a gloomy guy (Stephen Rea) and his daughter, a blonde who is a little older than the couple's son.
After dinner, Matt, the father, starts to feel ill and Tyler (Stephen Rea) hits on his wife. The house that the couple rented, from Tyler himself, was inhabited by a couple who died of septic shock.
After 45 minutes of this sleepy and dull plot, where nothing happened, I gave up on the movie before I fell asleep for good.
]]>List of movies featuring videogames: either arcade, pinball or home videogames. This list is by no means complete and it only features movies that I've watched and recognized some videogame in it. I've added notes notifying which videogames are in each movie.
- Tron
- Pac-man makes a cameo: img854.imageshack.us/img854/7789/tronbw.jpg
- There's a scene where Flynn is in an arcade. A lot of pinballs and arcade machines are shown here, but I've only payed attention to Asteroids Deluxe.
- The Last Starfighter
The Starfighter arcade, featured in the movie, exists only in the movie, but Atari unsuccessfully tried to turn it into a game for the Atari 5200.
There are rumors that Atari even made a prototype for the arcades, but the technology of the time didn't allow to create an identical arcade to the film.In this century, a company called Rogue Synapse turned the dream of fans of the film in reality, creating a fairly faithful version of the Starfighter game:
img912.imageshack.us/img912/9020/qwIo0g.jpg
It's available for Windows. - Cloak & Dagger
The videogame cart showed in the movie was already being produced by Atari, but was never released due to the videogames crash of 1983. The arcade version already existed at the time and the Atari 5200 cartridge that appears in the film is fake. The game images are from the arcade version.
- WarGames
Matthew Broderick plays Galaga !
You can watch it in the beginning of the movie trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAcEzhQ7oqA
Besides Galaga, in the arcade scene you can see other arcade machines like Jungle Hunt, Ms. Pac-Man and Tron. In IMDB there's a complete list: www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/movieconnections?ref_=tt_ql_trv_6
- Nightmares
In the second episode, Emilio Estevez plays an arcade game to death. The game is called "The Bishop of Battle" and it only exists in the movie, but there are a lot of other games in the arcade. Unfortunately, I couldn't identify any of them.
- Bete Balanço
The character played by Diogo Vilela spends his time playing K.C. Munchkin in his Odyssey II console.
- The Wizard
Two boys run away from Utah to California and along the way they find a girl who convinces them to a videogame championship. Super Mario Bros 3, Ninja Gaiden and Double Dragon are in the film, among other NES games. In the part where kids are training for the championship you can count at least a half dozen games.
It is easy to find on YouTube several videos with clips of this film where many video games can be seen. Including the famous scene where a boy plays Rad Racer using the Power Glove. In real life, Rad Racer is not compatible with the Power Glove.
- RoboCop 2
There's a scene where a fight breaks loose in an arcade. I could identify some games like Midnight Resistance, Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, The Real Ghostbusters, Slap Shot and Sly Spy. All of them are published by Data East, which probably sponsored the movie, besides being responsible for the Robocop arcade videogame.
Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja: img254.imageshack.us/img254/1416/robocop5.jpg
Midnight Resistance: img301.imageshack.us/img301/1884/robocop2.jpgRobocop breaks a guy face in the Midnight Resistance machine !
- Back to the Future Part II
Marty McFly plays an adapted version of the arcade game Wild Gunman, by Nintendo, in Cafe 80's in the future. In the same Cafe there's a Pac-Man machine.
- Bloodsport
Van Damme plays a Karate Champ machine in a scene of the movie.
...plus 210 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Movies that I would like to rewatch, because I've seen them many years ago or haven't seen an uncut version.
- Stripped to Kill
- Cannonball Run II
- Angel of the Night
- Tales of Erotica
- Frog Dreaming
- Stripshow
- California Suite
- Short Circuit
- Waxwork II: Lost in Time
- Proteus
...plus 77 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
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