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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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Noted mostly as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s cinematic swan song, A Most Wanted Man is also a clear-eyed look at the long twilight struggle that we in the West have with the Islamists who are trying to kill us. Hoffman goes deep – real deep – as a 21st century German intel officer trying to keep Ha…
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60 Minutes revisits Philip Seymour Ho...
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Think of Act of Valor as real US Naval Special Warfare come to cineplexes, not as a normal war movie. Thus the valor is certain, the acting not so much. Directed by a couple of former stuntmen and starring a bunch of active duty SEALs, it is earnest in the extreme and often wooden in its no…
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Real bullets make this a unique movie
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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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The War Against Islamist Terror gets short shrift in the nearly risible American Assassin, which starts well, powerfully well, but then goes mostly downhill. Quality aside: Sequel or No Sequel? That is the question. This origin story sets a low bar, yet made money, so why not a sequel. It’ll al…
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Lame conversation misses the point
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The wages of sin are very good for Tom Cruise for a very long time in American Made, a fanciful recounting of one smuggler’s blues during the 1980s cocaine explosion. It’s a very satisfying movie, with a modicum of truth, a surfeit of crazed sexiness, and a satisfactory ending when the wages of…
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Great trailer lies from the start.
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A fantastic film cataloguing insanity, war and imperialism, Apocalypse Now is a sprawling, magnificent film that masterfully builds up dread and tension through its adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
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Apocalypse Now Trailer
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Two political movies were released this third weekend before the Obama retention election – one on heroic capitalism, the other recreating a little known cloak-and-dagger success during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, an otherwise dismal chapter in American history. The second movie – Argo – is th…
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Making a fake hit movie
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Given the dismal state of Islamist terror movies, this surprisingly evenhanded thriller tops the heap, though its disjointed plot comes together slowly and Leonardo DiCaprio’s CIA character lacks charisma. Fortunately he’s flanked by two great actors, the estimable Russell Crowe and the slickly … |
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This modern farce picks up a decent head-of-steam, but rarely becomes LOL funny, and ultimately suffers from its makers’ oddball sense of timing and irony. Bottom line: a lesser Coen Brothers comedy, worth watching but not treasuring.
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If only the movie were this funny.
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