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This time it’s war, talky-war but war indeed. The Games themselves are in the past when Part 1 of The Hunger Games finale opens. War aside, it’s as if this richly imagined and action-packed series pauses to catch its breath in its penultimate installment. Mockingjay – Part 1 features the s…
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Good Guys Don't Always Wear White
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I’m loyal to Katniss Everdeen, so had to see the end of her story. Love can be painful and this movie was. Freighted with profound mournfulness, it’s simply too much and too long. Alas, The Hunger Games is ultimately high-toned YA, notwithstanding its often brilliant political grandstanding. Th…
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Love Hurts, Sweet Katniss
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Nebraska is a triumph of character development and acting. Good thing, since the plot only goes from A to B – or from Billings to Omaha, which is further than A is from B, but not by much. It dyspeptically portrays Middle-American lives lived as nasty and brutish. Short too? No, long and …
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The toughest of them all: June Squibb
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The elves dominate Hobbit 2. Coolest, prettiest, deadliest – they look especially good in the nearby poster. Orlando Bloom returns as Legolas; Evangeline Lilly joins as Tauriel, Chief of the Guards; moviestars both. But it’s not just martial elves that make this movie such a treat. Advent…
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The Fighting Legolas: Orlando Bloom
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Part 1 of the The Hobbit trilogy is an oft charming visual feast. Wait. Part 1? Trilogy? The Hobbit ain’t no trilogy! It is now, at the movies. Peter Jackson – Lord High Creator of the Lord of the Rings trilogy…
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Bilbo's Hobbit-Hole
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Noah is a mashup of Old Testament and Global Warming theologies, one antediluvian, one anti-economic. Oh yeah, there’s also lots of Hollywood fantasy thrown in to make it a 21st century basso profondo action epic. The bizarre result is often ridiculous, but ultimately worthwhile both theologi…
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Leaden & bizarre, yet also worthwhile
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The hero of many a Tom Clancy story gets rebooted in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a more than competent action thriller. Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley and Kenneth Branagh are much more than competent as its starring quartet, allowing the movie to draw from a deep well of moviestar…
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Branagh the Dir employs a killer villain
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Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Pay $15 for an IMAX sequel that spurns the music and conventions that defined Mission Impossible in the first place and that fails to induce vertigo, IMAX or no. Doesn’t seem a worthwhile value in these recessionary times. MI – GP is a good movi…
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Famous nose meets self-destructing fone
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The Grand Budapest Hotel flaunts a garden of cinematic delights. Deliciously deadpan and deliriously fun for those of us who love the cinematic art form, Wes Anderson’s brilliant confection works high and low. Well, not too low, as even the physical comedy and silly surprises take a bit of sm…
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Evildoers: Dafoe & Brody
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One of the all-time great submarine movies, so terrific it even had this Yiddish Yank rooting for the Nazi Navy. |