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Chris Compendio

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Chris Compendio

  • About
  • Culture Writing
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Reviews

"Mission: Impossible - Fallout" Review

"Mission: Impossible - Fallout" Review

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Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt is a paranoid, insane, and unruly daredevil. Ethan Hunt is also a guardian angel who will save everyone. These are the two ideas that the latest installment of the venerable Mission: Impossible action series, Fallout, revolve around—and these ideas are not mutually exclusive. More so than the previous films, Fallout goes deeper into Hunt's state of mind, with all of his previous actions and mistakes finally building up to create an unavoidable pile.

This character journey comes in the form of what is essentially a two-and-a-half long constant action set piece.

"Sorry to Bother You" Review

"Sorry to Bother You" Review

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Every time Tessa Thompson's character in Sorry to Bother You shows up, she is wearing a new pair of earrings of her own design. These serve as the perfect metaphor for the movie itself: they are big, impractical, provocative, lack any subtlety any whatsoever—but more importantly, you love looking at them, and you want to see what will come next.

Sorry to Bother You wears its weirdness for all to see, and yet you will still not be prepared for it.

"Deadpool 2" Review

"Deadpool 2" Review

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Making a Deadpool movie involves a lot of nuance. Yeah, an absurd statement for the character that yells the word "chimichangas" constantly, but hear me out. Go too far down the spectrum, and you end up with a Deadpool that becomes an "LOL SO RANDOM!" unbearable meme. On the other end, Deadpool could become standard superhero fare that the character thrives in satirizing. To make such a movie successful, you have to get it just right.

So here's my hot take on Deadpool 2: it's the Goldilocks of Deadpool movies.

"Avengers: Infinity War" Review

"Avengers: Infinity War" Review

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Avengers: Infinity War is predictably fun and entertaining, while also being unusually dark and containing a real storyline for its villain. I certainly did not hate it, but it’s hard for me to formulate a final opinion when we have a sequel to wrap everything up next year. I predict that hardcores such as myself will appreciate the film, with everyone else on the fandom spectrum, with general moviegoing audiences at the end of said spectrum, will be divided, and quite possibly alienated.

This will not be the film that they expected.

"Thor: Ragnarok" Review

"Thor: Ragnarok" Review

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Thor and Bruce Banner are on the distant planet of Sakaar—take deep breaths, Thor tells Banner, on the verge of panicking from his first off-Earth experience. This is a “place designed to stress me out,” as Banner describes it, with too many sources of visual and audio stimuli, colors everywhere, and things literally flying into his face.

This is what watching Thor: Ragnarok was like.

"Hidden Figures" Review

"Hidden Figures" Review

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“Hidden Figures” is an important film for a multitude of reasons – not only are stories about women of color rare in mainstream Hollywood, but women and women of color face a number hurdles when going into STEM that men do not have to. This movie is also a reminder of what racism looks like – we often see racism as loud and overt, but implicit racism can be just as ugly and damaging. “Hidden Figures” is a real crowd-pleaser, one that doesn’t need CGI spectacle or witty one-liners, but is instead carried by strong performances and powerful truths.

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