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Judy ****

There’s no doubt, the self-destruction of singer and beloved movie star Judy Garland is a tragic story- one of wasted talent and random craziness. So you know where this is going from the beginning.

But there is this wry kind of sparkle in actor Rene Zellweger’s eye, even when the going is rough- and apparently it got so on a regular basis in Garland’s life- that hints at a human being behind the tragedy. This gives “Judy” a heart despite the general show business chaos of her final years.

It also begs the question of exactly who is responsible for this kind of failure. Judy Garland was loved by millions, but unable to control her worst impulses. Was that her fault, the fault of the star making machinery of Hollywood or a lot of both?

Directed by Rupert Goold…2019…featuring Renée Zellweger, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Bella Ramsey, Jessie Buckley, Darci Shaw.

In the Tall Grass **

It’s a nightmare alright- you hear a kid calling for help, but instead of coming to the rescue, you find yourself lost in a sea of grass. There are other people lost out there too, including the kid, but you can’t trust anyone or anything- including yourself. Then there’s that big rock that means something but what it is isn’t exactly clear. It’s all evil and creepy, if not cohesive plotwise.

Directed by Vincenzo Natali…2019…featuring Laysla De Oliveira, Avery Whitted, Patrick Wilson, Will Buie Jr, Harrison Gilbertson.

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Ad Astra ***

An astronaut travels to an orbit around Neptune to find his long lost father, who may be responsible for cataclysmic energy bursts plaguing Earth. The son is a stone-faced soldier doing his duty and the dad is a blubbering mess by the time he gets there. Meanwhile, the facility is belching out destructive energy, Neptune spins mightily nearby and a bomb is about to go off.

Directed by James Gray…2019…featuring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Donald Sutherland.

Joker ***

The disintegration of a would-be comedian into a dangerous lunatic is a dark and downward journey here, offering a glimpse of not just the evil he commits, but also the evil done to him during his breakdown. The result is a super villian who may be the symbol of a “kill the rich” movement, or it may all just be in his head.

Directed by Todd Phillips…2019…featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen.

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The Kitchen ***

Three wives of busted gang crew members must find some real steel to survive on the mean streets after their husbands go to prison and the gang hangs them out to dry. They find that steel and more as they not only find a way to feed their families but they end up just taking over the whole show. But success breeds problems for the women whose motives differ widely.

Directed by Andrea Berloff…2019…featuring Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Common.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie ***

A sequel to the “Breaking Bad” series follows the escape of the character Jesse from slave-like captivity to a life on the move. There’s no time here for character development as Jesse must keep on the run and remains in a state of intense agitation. Still, familiar faces come and go throughout the production, giving fans new fodder to consider, and escape does seem possible for Jesse if he can pay the full price.

Directed by Vince Gilligan…2019…featuring Aaron Paul, Jonathan Banks, Matt Jones, Charles Baker, Bryan Cranston.

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Downton Abbey ***

A movie-length return to Downton Abbey where the old crew reassembles in preparation for a visit from the King and Queen. There is the usual puffiness about this sequestered life of decorum, but also some radical politics and danger for the status quo. Meanwhile, the family torch is formally passed and everybody audiences have come to associate with the original series has their moment.

Directed by Micael Engler…2019…featuring Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech, Joanne Froggat, Robert James-Collier, Phyllis Logan.

Birds of Passage ***

A Colombian family gets into the marijuana business with neighboring clans only to find the new business’ influence challenges long-held beliefs and superstitions. When family members disregard the traditions of respect and terms of trade between the clans, that’s when the cracks begin to form in their lives, leading to war. Despite the storyline and eventual stand off, this is a lot about the people and their views and ways of doing business.

Directed by Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra…2019…featuring Carmiña Martínez, José Acosta, Natalia Reyes, Jhon Naraez, Greider Meza, Jose Vicente, Juan Bautista Martinez.

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Series: The Last Czars ***

A dramatization of the fall of Russian Czar Nicholas II and the subsquent murder of his family. The live action sequences are interspersed with interviews from historians who shed light on the events. Taken together, this plays out like a soap opera with a very dark end for the weak minded Nicholas, the gullible Czarina Alexandra and the monk priest Rasputin who manipulates them- if you are to believe the sensationalist nature of the portrayals here.

2019…featuring Robert Jack, Susanna Herbert, Ben Cartwright.

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood ****

Another history twister. A fading TV star and his best friend- and stunt double- navigate the streets and movie lots of Hollywood in 1969. Along the way, they encounter other actors and crew doing the same thing, try to make deals that will prolong their careers, fight and party like crazy.

Thanks to the youth culture explosion of the 1960s, things in Hollywood are changing quickly all around the cowboy tough guy star and his buddy. They find it hard to keep their feet as changing tastes threaten their livelihood.

But apparently part of the “magic” of Hollywood is that random things can happen that change everything. A random meeting with Charles Manson and his “family,” for instance, brings the dark side of change to the front and center.

Directed by Quentin Tarantino…2019…featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Timothy Olyphant, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, Damian Lewis, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Michael Madsen.

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Blinded by the Light ***

In 1987, a young British-Pakistani student discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen and gets inspired to dream beyond his life in a town beset by rampant racism and unemployment.

Further, the young poet is pressured to follow the guidance of his headstrong father who insists on making all of the decisions for everyone in his family according to foreign cultural traditions and his experience as a hardworking immigrant. It takes Springsteen’s lyrics of struggle and triumph to help the younger man resist the unappealing plans his father has for him.

It’s all set in a time of unrest and difficulties that has everyone searching for new answers. It turns out everyone must change or else their family gets torn apart.

Directed by Gurinder Chadha…2019…featuring Viveik Kalra, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Ganatra, Aaron Phagura, Dean-Charles Chapman, Nell Williams, Rob Brydon.

Serenity ****

An out-of-luck fisherman, who owes everything to the bank but can’t stop thinking about the giant tuna that always just escapes getting caught, gets further disoriented when his ex comes calling with a shocking offer.

There’s a definitive twist here that changes the entire balance of the movie- you think you know where this is going early on, but you probably don’t. The result is a creative mindbender that stakes out some imaginative territory full of angst, confusion and a dogged sense that things should be put right, no matter what.

Directed by Steven Knight…2019…featuring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Rafael Sayegh.

Arctic ****

A downed pilot in the Arctic wasteland uses every trick he knows to survive while hoping for rescue. But that’s not the only remarkable thing here.

With a horrific storm coming in, a helicopter appears ready to save him when it crashes too. The pilot manages to save one of the passengers and then everything about his survival changes. Without thinking about it for even a second, he automtically does everything he can to keep the recent crash survivor alive. That means choosing to leave behind the relative safety of his makeshift camp to cross the wilderness with an severely injured person.

While this is about the primal human impulse to survive, it is also about a human need to help others. At least it is for the pilot, who doesn’t have much to say, but battles the elements and Arctic dangers with every ounce of his being.

Directed by Joe Penna…2019…featuring Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, Tintrinai Thikhasuk.

High Life ***

Death row convicts sign on to travel deep into space in experimental crafts for experimental puposes. One such craft explores black holes while maintaining a human reproduction regimin- the men provide the sperm and the women become the surrogotes.

But the unimaginable rigors of deep space travel- being cooped up in a can for years and years- shatters the psychotic limits of the crew who were not the most stable people to begin with. The babies don’t survive either, except for one who clings to the one remaining convict as life support systems begin to fail.

It’s a movie with a static and slow moving ambiance over all- perhaps rightly mimicking the strangeness of space and artificial living- except for some intense and disturbing sexual scenes involving a sexual release chamber and a shipboard rape.

Directed by Claire Denis…2019…featuring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Jessie Ross.

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Peterloo ***

For the thousands of poor working folk of Manchester, England, the day was one of flag waving, oratory and family unity. But for the ruling class, the day was one of hard nosed indignation and a lack of moral courage. The result at a workers’ rights rally in 1819 was a pitiless massacre sending armed and mounted soldiers into the crowds of defenseless protesters to push, hit, hack and stab.

The unbelievable number of the protestors who show up for the event featuring a speech by the country’s most prominant “reform” advocate is what inspires the rash decision by government officials to act violently. Right in front of their eyes they could see that the old ways of governing and profit grabbing from the impoverished were very quickly disappearing. And this massacre did not help them keep their power either.

Directed by Mike Leigh…2019…featuring Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell, David Moorst.

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Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story ****

Director Martin Scorsese revisits Bob Dylan’s famous Rolling Thunder Revue tour that stretched from 1975 into 1976. The tour is famous because Dylan used his fame and music industry muscle to assemble a roving caravan of musicians, poets, playwrights and cool hangers-on that didn’t make money so much as apparently had a whale of an adventure, criss-crossing the country and playing in venues of all kinds.

It’s hard to decide what is more riveting in this freewheeling documentary- the extensive performance clips that intensely focus close on Bob Dylan’s painted face, or the contemporary interviews with Dylan, showing age but scant clues as to his personality. Throughout the documentary, the young Dylan and old Dylan maintain a kind of aloofness tinged with an apparent need to just keep moving. The endless screens during the credits, listing Dylan’s concert touring since the Rolling Thunder Revue dates, attest to his still-restless spirit.

But it is poet Allen Ginsberg who offers some meaning to this tour that is a long time over, urging listeners to take away inspiration from this special gathering of artists to find their own community, work and “beauty.”

Directed by Martin Scorsese…2019…featuring Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, Scarlet Rivera, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Ramblin Jack Elliot, Sam Shepard, Sharon Stone, Ronnie Hawkins, Anne Waldman, Ronee Blakley, Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack, Eric Andersen, Peter Orlovsky, Gordon Lightfoot.

Yesterday ****

A luckless singer-songwriter on the verge of quitting his career playing pubs and community events gets knocked off his bike in a traffic accident during a strange global black out. When he awakens, it’s in a world that has never heard of the massively popular pop group The Beatles, so he sees his chance to use the band’s greatest tunes to kick start his career- that is, if he can remember the songs, because otherwise, they don’t exist.

The whole thing is merely a summertime confection, pleasantly imagined and thoughtfully constructed with plenty of inside humor and music for Beatles fans.

Directed by Danny Boyle…2019…featuring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Sophia Di Martino, Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, James Cordon, Kate McKinnon.

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The Perfection ***

Is it revenge or is it salvation when a former cello prodigy returns to a prestigious music school- after leaving it all for a sick mother- and she befriends the current school darling? Getting her to cut off her own hand suggests the former but there are more plot twists than that in this music-themed thriller. In any case, things start to unravel for the perverted school master and his crew who use the desire for perfection as a tool to savagely debase their students.

Directed by Richard Shepard…2019…featuring Allison Williams, Logan Browning, Steven Weber, Alaina Huffman.

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I Am Mother ***

A fully automated human repopulation facility full of human embryos switches itself on as war rages outside.

Its mission is to preserve human life, but it has also decided to perfect it, starting with a single girl. She doesn’t know there is anything else until a refugee from the wasted world outside upsets everything and it becomes unclear about exactly who has been trying to wipe out the human race.

Actor Clara Rugaard creates a durable character in Daughter, the super-smart and super-sheltered girl who must make sense of shifting information. She is tended to by Mother, a robot caregiver and teacher tasked with administering the growth of the embryos. Daughter has to learn a lot in a short time, hurtling toward the inevitibility of having to replace Mother.

Directed by Grant Sputore…2019…featuring Clara Rugaard, Luke Hawker, Rose Byrne, Hilary Swank, Tahlia Sturzaker.

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Rocketman ****

It’s an imaginative and emotional production full of rock and roll pomp and colorful, crazy costumes as well as plenty of personal fireworks in the telling of pop artist Elton John’s life and career.

“Rocketman” is a musical that veers into fantasy as the talent and personal trials of John’s younger years are recounted- from a poor English upbringing in a fractured household to stardom to stuffing himself with drugs and drink while wrestling with sexual identity.

As it must have been for a star like John, whirling around the world at a pace that would confuse anyone, the movie blurs the lines between storytelling and hallucinations. But foremost, the production is buoyed by bits and pieces of John’s best-loved songs, which goes a long way to putting some real heart into it.

Directed by Dexter Fletcher…2019…featuring Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard, Gemma Jones, Steven Mackintosh, Matthew Illesley, Tate Donovan.

The Highwaymen ***

Two former Texas Rangers are dragged back into service to stop the crime spree by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. It’s grim-faced business for them because everyone knows they will have to kill the outlaws to stop them.

It doesn’t help that other law enforcement agencies are bloated and woe-fully out of touch and the rural folk glorify Bonnie and Clyde like heroes to the point of lying for them and protecting them. Some of these folk get a reminder from the Rangers along the trail that Bonnie and Clyde were ruthless killers- not only of lawmen, but innocents as well.

Still, old-fashioned leg-work, deduction and perseverance pays off in the horrifying reckoning. All that’s left is some bloody bodies getting picked at and pummeled by a crowd of gawkers as the bullet-riddled car is towed back into town. The Rangers can only shake their heads and turn away.

Directed by John Lee Hancock…2019…featuring Kevin Costner, Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates, John Carroll Lynch, Thomas Mann, Kim Dickens, William Sadler.

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The Wandering Earth ****

Awesome scale and perspective both in visual design and mindbending concept earns “The Wandering Earth” a place among the most ambitious sci-fi productions of the 21st Century.

To escape the expanding sun, the inhabitants of Earth band together to create a series of giant “earth engines” to propell the planet out of the solar system and to another home star. The planet, however, gets snared in Jupiter’s gravity and is in danger of being pulled apart- that is unless desperate emergency teams are able to complete their missions to restart failed engines.

While it takes every iota of technology to get this done in fast, split-second action, it becomes the human element- one of heart and sacrifice- that makes the ultimate difference. This goes for the individual characters who must summon up their own personal courage and for humanity as a whole, who decide at key times, through a primal consensus, to work together to survive.

This human element is like a kind of sweetener in the midst of an otherwise chaotic and violent landscape. “The Wandering Earth” blends these together with purpose- in the face of gigantic challenges, the efforts of every person matters. It’s a colorful and captivating ride to reach this moral, presented with wide-minded vision and the positivity of human potential.

Directed by Frant Gwo…2019…featuring Jing Wu, Chuxiao Qu, Guangjie Li, Man-Tat Ng, Jin Mai Jaho.

Polar ***

This is a stylish production that maintains a rapid pace and that counts for a lot.

A hitman named “The Black Kaiser” becomes a target just days before his retirement, his employer seeking to keep the money owed the aging killer. That puts a band of crazy, younger assassins on his trail in a remote area.

But what really makes the Kaiser mad is that his troubles spill over to ensnare the young woman in the cabin next door, and that inspires him to endure merciless torture and mow down the armies of his employer to save her life. His reward, however, is completely unexpected.

Directed by Jonas Akerlund…2019…featuring Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Matt Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss.

Triple Frontier ***

Five former special forces operatives reunite for all the wrong reasons when the luster of “retired” life dulls.

It’s not initially their fault. They are lured into the situation- raiding a South American drug lord’s house that is literally made of money- by one of their own. When the truth is revealed about the nature of the “mission,” their choices and fortunes turn from bad to worse, their integrity flitting away in the breeze like a bag of money thrown from a plane. Regret is the result even though it’s way too late to make a difference.

Directed by J.C. Chandor…2019…featuring Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal.

Velvet Buzzsaw ***

“Velvet Buzzsaw” is about the power of art. But what the characters here define as “power” ranges widely. To some, like a pretentious art critic, power is the ability to make or break artists, galleries and museums with a single review. To others, like a former punk princess who has turned knowledge of rock stardom into a high level career as an art dealer and gallery owner, power is competing with top drawer peers for the latest sensation. Others just follow the money.

This is the back-biting background for a dark comedy that isn’t too complimentary of the art world and exacts some bloody revenge as a cache of mysterious paintings by a reclusive and unknown artist attachs a fatal curse on all who try to profit from it.

The only one to escape is the only one who is an actual artist- bored stiff of the business of the art world- who finds his salvation simply by making art that can’t be sold.I

Directed by Dan Gilroy…2019…featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Toni Collette, John Malkovich.

Io ***

Io is a moon of Jupiter that a desperate human race has chosen as the rally point beyond Earth for massive re-colonization expeditions. But none of this movie happens on Io. Instead, it follows the struggles of the few survivors left on Earth, a planet that has become toxic to life. One young scientist, carrying on her father’s work, has discovered that the environment is not toxic to all life, offering hope for a reborn Earth. And then there’s the pragmatism of the man who drops into her solitary life in a hot air balloon. Their values are tested as they process the news that the last shuttles are leaving Earth for Io.

Directed by Jonathan Helpert…2019…featuring Margaret Qualley, Anthony Mackie, Danny Huston

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Series:

Typewriter ***

A woman returns with her husband and son to her family’s deserted estate in rural India to find it has the reputation of being haunted by a malicious ghost. What seems like poppycock to her at first ends up becoming a horrific and dangerous situation- and unfolds things about her past, when she lived in the estate with her grandfather as a little girl.

The grandfather is suspected by everyone she talks to of having been mixed up in black magic and the key to it all seems to be the old typewriter that lays forgotten in the attic. A particularly nasty devotee of evil maneauvers to take possession of the typewriter even as the woman starts piecing together the truth of the situation. Meanwhile, she gets help from an unexpected source- some local kids who call themselves the Ghost Gang.

Directed by Sujoy Ghosh…2019…featuring Mikhail Gandhi, Sara Gesawat, Palomi Ghosh, Aarnaa Malviya.

Another Life ***

An alien artifact arrives and plants itself on Earth with mysterious intentions. While the smart people remain behind to grapple with the mystery, a space mission with a brave crew is sent to the source of the artifact to make contact and find out what it all means.

The brave space crew is lead by a woman who is alternately super-focused and determined, then fragile and damaged. But that’s how it is for folks in deep space, at least for this crew full of social problems. At regular intervals, however, there are life and death crises to handle that make them put such things as mutiny and personal attacks on hold.

Of course, the smart people on Earth are lead by the husband of the space mission’s captain- and he’s got to keep track of the pair’s young daughter while trying every imaginable scenario to communicate with the artifact. All that is just the beginning- and then the artifact opens up on Earth and the space mission finally arrives at their destination.

Created by Aaron Martin…2019…featuring Katee Sackhoff, Samuel Anderson, Blu Hunt, AJ Rivera, Jake Abel, Alex Ozerov, Alexander Eling, JayR Tinaco, Justin Chatwin, Elizabeth Faith Ludlow, Selma Blair.

Black Summer ***

A gritty take on the familiar zombie apocalypse scenario- total strangers end up depending on each other as they navigate a sudden and inexplicable onslaught of the rabid undead. There isn’t much time for reflection for the characters who all have back stories of their own, but who inevitably cross each other’s paths in the chaos. The zombies here are the super-quick variety with the relentless mania of wanting to eat the living. What’s at stake here is desperate survival at the cost of split-second cooperation.

Created by John Hyams, Karl Schaefer…2019…featuring Jaime King, Justin Chu Cary, Christine Lee, Sal Velez Jr, Kelsey Flower, Erika Hau.

Umbrella Academy ***

Dysfunction can be expected when you put a group of youngsters together in a foster home and raise them with strict standards, ridgid training and an overpowering sense of duty. But since the youngsters in the Umbrella Academy all have special powers- strength, agility, the ability to influence minds, speak to the dead and travel through space and time- there’s a lot of dysfunction and it tears their family apart.

The dysfunction- born from years of misconceptions and conflicting memories- nearly ruins the group again when they reunite after the mysterious death of their “father.” It certainly destroys the world despite their best efforts and advanced planning by their dead dad.

In between a lot of back story, emotional confrontations, family spatting and sentimental musings are story threads of time travel, dire discoveries and a team of assassins tasked with preserving the future for “the Commission.” The series climaxes with some eye-popping effects and mindbending possibilities.

Created by Jeremy Slater…2019…featuring Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Mary J Blige, Cameron Britton, Adam Godley, Colm Feore, Justin H Min, Jordan Claire Robbins, John Magaro.

Kingdom ***

In “Kingdom,” you might expect the palace intrigue that insues in ancient Korea between two powerful families vying for the throne, but no one expects a horrible plague that turns the infected into crazed, blood thirsty monsters. It gets worse when the king himself drops out of sight and his ministers are acting pretty strange.

This could be just another turn at the zombie apocalypse theme but thanks to the primitive setting, guns are a rareity and the survivors depend on a whole different kind of ingenuity to stay alive than do, say, the group in “Walking Dead”- no automatic weapons, no vehicles, no concrete buildings to hide in, just quick thinking, desperate preparation and nerves of steel.

2019…featuring Doona Bae, Greg Chun, Jun-ho Heo.

The Widow ***

A woman whose husband has reportedly died in a violent airplane incident in Africa can’t let go of the mysterious cirumstances of his death, so she travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo to start an investigation of her own. Her determination enlists helpers along the way, some of whom die as a result, and what she uncovers ranges from a smuggling operation undercutting government taxes on a rare material used in computer lap tops, to unfortunate news about her husband.

2019…featuring Kate Beckinsale, Alex Kingston, Babs Olusanmokun, Charles Dance, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jacky Ido, Bart Fouche, Matthew Le Nevez, Shalom Nyandiko.

Russian Doll ***

A tough-talking, hard knocks woman in New York City almost loses her cool when she gets stuck in a time loop that begins at a birthday thrown by friends and ends in her death. But the story and the general landscape changes as she passes through the loop several times and her natural savviness kicks in to start unraveling the mystery of what’s going on. In the process, she makes some unlikely new friends and sorts through some of the important issues of her past, while maintaining a wise cracking, devil-may-care, fringe dwelling attitude throughout.

Created by Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler…2019…featuring Natasha Lyonne, Charlie Barnett, Greta Lee, Elizabeth Ashley, Rebecca Henderson, Jeremy Bobb, Brendan Sexton III.

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