Tag Archives: film

Movie Review: A Mother’s Past and Present Blur “When Fall is Coming”

François Ozon has to be the French cinema’s premier poker player. With his genre-bending/expectations-upending dramas (“Everything Went Fine”), dramedies (“In the House”), feminist comedies (“Potiche”) and musical drama mysteries (“8 Women”), you’d hate to be seated at the same table … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: A Reporter digs into government scandals real and staged — “Defence of the Realm” (1985)

It’s odd to think of the ’80s as a movie decade in which we can bandy the phrase “They don’t make’em like that any more” about. Hollywood’s blockbuster obsession almost wholly took over, and the roman numeralization of cinema “franchises” … Continue reading

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Netflixable? “Being Eddie” is how Murphy wants you to See Him

Eddie Murphy has a lot to be satisfied with. A gifted mimic turned overnight stand-up star, famous since his teen years on “Saturday Night Live,” a ground-breaking African American superstar of the screen, for decades one of the biggest box … Continue reading

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BOX OFFICE: “Now You See Me” out sprints “Running Man,” “Predator Badlands” drops to third

A franchise revival, a remake and a big sci-fi/monster holdover walk into a bar… This weekend’s box office isn’t one for the record books, as nothing is making Marvel/Pixar/”Avatar” money in a $12-$20 ticket environment. But it does show why … Continue reading

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Movie Review: A Torch and a Card Trick are passed to a new Generation — “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t”

It helps to think of the “Now You See Me” film franchise as a manga that dodged the whole anime series then anime movie “product” assembly line. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” brought on that epiphany. Revived a … Continue reading

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Movie Review: “The Running Man” Stumbles into a Dead End

About thirty minutes into the Glen Powell/Edgar Wright remake of “The Running Man” I thought “This is kind of working.” I invested in this updating of Stephen King’s dytopian sci-fi horror for the age of ICE, fascism and murderously amoral … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Lesser Lubitsch, a “Heaven Can Wait” (1943) that Bores

When we think of the Hollywood comedies by the great German expat Ernst Lubitsch, we remember Garbo at her drollest, a Bolshevik who falls in love in “Ninotchka,” the doors-slamming-on-Nazis backstage farce “To Be or Not to Be” and the … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Exiled Man and Woman wrestle with their Pasts on “The Silent Planet”

“The Silent Planet” is a sci-fi allegory that attempts to take the pulse of the human condition in our current, fear-immigrants moment and doesn’t quite come off. One can appreciate the cleverness of seeing The Tablelands in Canada’s Gros Morne … Continue reading

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Netflixable? Guillermo del Toro and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”

Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is Gothic horror rendered in the grandest strokes. The expansive, baroque settings are grandeur incarnate, with grandiose performances pitched to fill every pixel of the Grand Guignol frame that the scarlet, grey and gloomy green backdrops … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Dolph and Michael Jai White roll their eyes at the Dork who says he’s “the best” — “Exit Protocol”

You’d think these sorts of things would be figured out at a table read, if not in the audition. Give your leading man his pages, make him read some of the fifth rate Raymond Chandler “tough guy” voice-over narration you … Continue reading

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