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Magic is making the incredible seem real, per The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Comedy magic is making the recognizable irresistibly funny, per me. Alas, this movie lacks comedy magic. One wry smile, but no LOLs and no guffaws get triggered by its strenuous jokes. Pity too, because the cas…
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Try screwing this up. They did.
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Why do remakes suck? Well, not all remakes suck, but Hollywood remakes of foreign films usually do. Consider Cold Pursuit. Lacking the droll charm of its Norwegian original, it’s more ugly than enjoyable. Let us count the mistakes vis-a-vis In Order of Disappearance…. |
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Proposal rejected. A promising set-up proves insufficient to generate many laughs or even much in the way of basic charm. Sandra Bullock can’t elevate above the leaden script, perhaps because she’s never better or worse than the lines she’s given to deliver. Here they hang in the air like a la…
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It's pretty much all downhill from here.
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A Mormon missionary’s time in Tonga makes for an entertaining family movie, if you can leave the proselytizing aside. The Other Side of Heaven is also an appealing period piece, first in the 1950s United States, but mostly in the South Pacific Islands of that era. Based on the biography of …
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Before she was a star: Anne Hathaway
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The acting is great, and Anya Taylor-Joy sure is cute, but there isn’t enough “there there” to save The Witch. What is supposed to be a scary witch-flick set where it is supposed to be: creepy dark woods in 1700’s new England, the movie just ends up being too slow and meandering, with a climax… |
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The Greatest Showman is …who again… Hugh Jackman or P.T. Barnum? This is Barnum’s biopic but Jackman’s show, designed to feature who? Jackman, singing and strutting as only Hugh Jackman can do. The Greatest Showman’s greatest problem is that Jackman likes to be liked. Unfortunately, lik…
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"Everything you'll ever want?" Uh, no.
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A big budget disaster when it came out at the end of the Sixties, Paint Your Wagon is a modestly entertaining extravaganza today. Faint praise? Indeed, for a musical comedy that is long on star power and short on memorable songs and effective humor. Oh yeah, it’s also long on time. I watc…
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Jean Seberg: lovely, not distinctive
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Well intentioned flop: the comedy never inspires laughs and the drama never hits home. Nonetheless, the great concept – oddball father drags practical daughter on a real treasure hunt through modern day suburbia – and the likable performances by Evan Rachel Wood and Michael Douglas make this wat… |
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The Wild One is an iconic movie better now as an iconic image and line than a motion picture experience. The image? Marlon Brando as an outlaw biker, inspiring popular culture for the next half-century. The line? Whattaya got? You don’t have to be a Jeopardy whiz to k…
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"Whattaya got?"
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Big Sur destroys Jack Kerouac’s legend, revealing the beatnik icon to be a self-pitying, self-absorbed alky. Generations of young romantics were awestruck by the celebrated author, pining for his life On The Road. I’ve long been one of those romantics, so was eager for a peek. But, as it’s sa…
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Cassady & Kerouac - fake & real
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