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![]() M. Night Shyamalan peaked with Signs. Wonderfully creepy and magnificently manipulative, it’s a self-consciously old-school scary movie. Even this non-horror fan enjoyed it. Mel Gibson’s Muted Max performance anchors writer-director Shyamalan’s achingly heavy story. Leading a great cast…
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Charismatically great acting: Gibson ...
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![]() Five big-names starring in “the best period film”1 make Steven Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons really great. Frears, he of The Queen, employs Michelle Pfeiffer, Glen Close, a nubile Uma Thurmond and a horny John Malkovich in bringing Christopher Hampton’s …
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They are impressive. The cast, that is.
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![]() Call me crazy, but I find The Philadelphia Story inferior to Bringing Up Baby, its contemporaneous cousin. Katherine Hepburn’s comeback movie – the picture that cemented her status as a hit-making star – is a very fine romcom and an understandable member of seven American Film Institute all-t…
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Starburst: Grant, Hepburn, Stewart
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![]() Wonderful movie about a boy and his cheetah. Heartfelt, sufficiently realistic and not sappy. Bravo. |
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![]() Great-uncles lead to great adventure for a boy in need of a loving home. Some have put down this movie as sentimental and bland, but I found it wry and satisfying. Especially for boys and men, the resonance runs deep. Come to think of it, it would be the perfect movie to watch on Father’s Day,… |
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![]() The American President succeeds grandly as a romantic comedy and ironically as a revealing peek into cushy Democratic pieties, of which Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner’s 1990s movie is a cinematic catechism. It focuses on a likeable man in the third year of his Presidency who is animated primari…
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Cushy Left Wing values turned up to 11.
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![]() A Separation fascinates both as an absorbing domestic drama and a lens into contemporary Iran. That compelling combination has made it a worldwide sensation, the odds-on favorite to win Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Oscars. It presents two families drawn together by domestic n…
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Bergman in Paris? No. Hatami in Teh...
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![]() Paul Newman wanted to be bad and got his wish with Hud. He plays a charismatic asshole, a user and abuser whose evil becomes increasingly evident as the movie rolls along. Three Oscars came in its wake, though King Cool himself had to be satisfied with just a nomination. Think Hud would’ve s…
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His unwanted attention brought her an...
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![]() “Dogtooth” is a curiously unappealing title, even given this celebrated movie’s self-conscious weirdness. Somehow Dogtooth made my Gotta View List, so I ultimately got around to viewing it. What a mistake. It tells the story of a wealthy and robotic Greek family who use code for common wor…
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Sex that is unsexy & unthreatening
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![]() A small movie – though not a short one – of deeply personal relationships, You Can Count on Me launched two Hollywood careers and elevated a third. Kenneth Lonergan’s debut marked him as an auteur of surpassing talent, while Mark Ruffalo’s first starring role marked him as an everyman actor of…
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Boy do these three need each other.
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