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![]() Gone Girl stirs the pot, no doubt about that. Premiering amidst the NFL-stoked domestic violence uproar, this sordid thriller about a wife’s murder is akin to throwing gas on a fire. But never mind all that societal stuff, is it a good movie? Yes, a great one, albeit far from perfect. The es…
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Smile! Oops, maybe not.
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![]() I avoided End of Watch when it came out in 2012, thinking it was just a steroidal TV Cop Show, moviestar Jake Gyllenhaal notwithstanding. Then David Ayer’s movie demanded attention, given BrianSez’s effusive review and Ayer’s recent mas…
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Cop Dogma in Outstanding Open Scene
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![]() Ben Kingsley gets in much deeper than planned after seducing a much younger Penélope Cruz in Elegy. Isabel Coixet’s movie comes by its sexual fixations via pedigree: Phillip Roth’s novel The Dying Animal. Think of it as Portnoy’s Complaint, the When I’m 64 rendition – "Will you still nee…
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Ben Kingsley seduces Penélope Cruz
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![]() Downright charming, this vampire movie. It’s also loads of fun, freshly exploiting well known vampire conventions while delivering enough gross-outs to trigger a handful of yucks and well earned laughs. Vampires aside, Let the Right One In achieves real distinction as a perfect evocation of…
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Trapped by bullies, a boy needs a fri...
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![]() Run see Run All Night if Liam Neeson bonding, then brawling with Ed Harris sounds like your cup of tea. It sounded like mine, and was. The two venerable actors certainly don’t disappoint in their manly duet. Formulaic in the extreme, RAN still has lots to like, starting with a great cast t…
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Genesis Rodriguez stuns at the premiere
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![]() Narco-gang depravity meets its match when things go military on the Mexican border in Sicario, Spanish for “hitman”. A semi-successful Emily Blunt rebels against this turn of events. Semi-successful? Her performance, not her rebellion, which is unsuccessful. Yet the movie is much more than semi…
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Coming Thru!!
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![]() Real-life drama ripped from TV news gets no more riveting or charming than in The 33, about the Chilean miners trapped half a mile below ground five years ago. Some three billion people followed their drama in 2010, including me and probably you. The fact that all 33 were safely brought to the …
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The real story of The 33
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![]() The 2012 Islamist militia attack on the two U.S. outposts in Benghazi Libya comes alive as a colossal and utterly predictable central-government failure in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Truth! The amazing thing is that only four men died, even if one was Ambassador Chris Stevens…
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Gold Star Parents react to 13 Hours
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![]() London Has Fallen is a distinct improvement over Olympus Has Fallen, making it a 1st-rate action movie. The sequel improves the original by having a plausible villain, albeit amidst an equally implausible story. Throw in several well-earned laughs – amid the carnage – and you’ve got a helluva…
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How They Made It
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![]() Casablanca it’s not, but Allied is a damn good romantic thriller set in WWII Casablanca, or at least initially set there. Most of the movie then takes place in London during the blitz, with Brad Pitt’s proto-007 thrust into domestic espionage against his wife, played by Marion Cotillard. It’s…
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Brad, Marion & Zemeckis talk Allied
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