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1 month ago | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad |Walter Salles
— by BEV QUESTAD —Jolting. I thought I would just watch the first five or 10 minutes and finish the rest the next day. I quickly forgot about that as I was gripped by the series of true events that could so possibly happen in America. But jolting was also the decision on March 2, 2025, at the 97th annual Academy Awards. Deservedly, “I’m Still Here” won for Best International Film.
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1 month ago | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad |Cooper Hoffman |Lucy Liu |Simon West
— by BEV QUESTAD —There’s a new James Bond in town and he’s not with M16. Austrian-German Christoph Waltz still has it in his 60s. He has a Sean Connery-like brogue, hair coif, handsome eye twinkle and a snazzy car. We meet him early in the film rocking out at a DJ club in London and then waking up the next day with three lovely women strewn about his bedroom. His day-job cover is working in a bakery, where he can’t avoid cooking up trouble.
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2 months ago | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad |Kieran Culkin |Margaret Qualley |Mikey Madison
— by BEV QUESTAD —The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), representing nearly 300 continually vetted online film journalists representing Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Slant, AARP and more, historians, and scholars worldwide, one-third based outside the US, announced the winners of its 2024 film awards on Jan. 27, 2025. As an OFCS member, I have never completely agreed with the slate of the winning nominations or the award-winning choices.
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2 months ago | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad |Demi Moore |Dennis Quaid |Margaret Qualley
— by BEV QUESTAD —I am obsessed with my weight, aging, hair and wrinkled looks. I see my 75-year-old self in the mirror every morning, sometimes totally disgusted. I’m just being honest. I asked my best friend, Bill, if he did the same. “Oh yes,” he sadly confided. So, women aren’t the only ones. Getting older is hard. But it seems to me that celebrities like 62-year-old Demi Moore know all the tricks to remain unchanged, vibrant and beautiful.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad
— by BEV QUESTAD —Her parents told her to keep quiet. Her sister begged her not to mention it. The police warned her that her career would be over if she pursued her complaint. In Japan, when you don’t want someone to know something, when you want to keep something secret, you put it in a hypothetical black box that never opens. But in Shiori Ito’s landmark (for Japan) case, the box is opened and everything that desperately begged to be kept secret is out.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad |Cynthia Erivo |Jeff Goldblum |Michelle Yeoh
— by BEV QUESTAD —The last I heard, the Wicked Witch of the West (WWW) died after Dorothy, stuck in the Land of Oz, threw water on her and she melted. Dorothy, frustratingly stuck in Oz, ended up clicking her ruby red shoes and magically returning home to Kansas with her faithful dog, Toto. The film ends with the famous line, “There’s no place like home.”This happened in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) which was seen by my mother when she was 11 years old.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad |Lupita Nyong'o
— by BEV QUESTAD —A group of robots end up crash-landing. One survives and, like Robinson Crusoe or the Swiss Family Robinson, must contend with the natural world of an uninhabited (by humans), untamed jungle/forest wilderness. However, since the robot, Roz, does not need to eat and gains power from light, she’s quite the oddity to the other beings. Soon into the show an abandoned egg breaks and a cute baby gosling peeks out.
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Jan 3, 2025 | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad
— by BEV QUESTAD —My 47-year-old long-haired musician-adventurist son, James T, asked me to take him to “A Complete Unknown” on Christmas Day. Dylan represents my generation, but James claims him too. Four days prior, his band was rockin’ out with the crowd joining in, “Any day now, any day now, I shall be released!” (1)Did he see the film the same way I did, and did he like it?
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Dec 27, 2024 | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad
— by BEV QUESTAD —The return of the treasures, the murmuring of the spirits and the new thinking of the people receiving the restitution make this documentary, in the top fifteen 2025 Oscar list, an eye-opener. We see an elegant dinner cruise on the electric ripples of the Seine long after sunset. The sophisticated dark Parisian night has reflecting lights and barely audible music coming from the cold water’s elite cargo. Then we pass through still, barren white walls.
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Dec 26, 2024 | 
itsjustmovies.com | Bev Questad
— by BEV QUESTAD —Secretly filmed in Iran, a dire intermix of state and religion is the threatening backdrop of the film’s story as well as the true-life, nerve-wracking environment for the film crew. Once a state is regarded as a manifestation of God’s will, laws, rules, and regulations become immutable mandates from God. Those who question or criticize are at risk of a flogging and incarceration.
