Boy (2010)

This hilarious comedy but not so well-executed drama has you crying with laughter one minute and crying with dismay the next over the disparity between a young boy's hero-image of his father and the man himself, a down-on-his-luck simpleton and terrible influence who steps back into the boy's life to recover a buried treasure.

★★★☆☆

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Murdered By My Boyfriend (2014)

This 2014 drama based on a true four-year-long abusive and controlling relationship that resulted in a young British woman's death is chilling viewing but is important in the way it illuminates the ways abusive men manipulate and lock their victims into no-win situations.

★★★★☆

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The Boy (2016)

An extra star for not being quite as silly as it first seems, this still exceedingly silly creepy doll horror movie is a horror in the gothic style of Guillermo del Torro (if you are being generous), about a nanny sent to a remote mansion where she discovers her young charge is actually a frozen-faced doll, possibly possessed or alive or something else equally ridiculous.

★★☆☆☆

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