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![]() Deaths in the family surround Casey Affleck’s New Englander, dragging him down and knocking him around in Manchester by the Sea. Kenneth Lonergan’s latest fractured-family film has been highly praised at film festivals and has Oscar buzz around it, especially for Affleck’s tortured performance….
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Before it all went to hell
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![]() Joe Morgenstern declared Mud an instant classic in the Wall Street Journal. Not sure why, but hell yes. You almost want to ding Mud for being such a classically terrific movie, but damn if it doesn’t play out as monumentally cinematic yet nearly natural. Kind of a crime caper involving b…
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Leading men, now & then: Matthew & Tye
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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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![]() Nobody’s Fool was a late career classic for everybody’s favorite moviestar. Paul Newman’s townie hand revels in being his own man, consequences be damned. He’s the town fool, even if he’s nobody’s fool — but his own. Moviestar performances from not only King Cool but also Bruce Willis, Me…
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Paul Newman: Mr. Sensitive
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![]() Spectacular calamity followed by impressive vengeance makes Olympus Has Fallen an amply satisfying cinematic experience. So what if it’s jingoism. It’s extremely well executed jingoism, by jingo! Patriotic action-movie fans – like me – happen to like this sort of button-pushing entertainment…
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Stunts and FX make the movie.
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![]() Blood begets blood as a Bangkok blood feud drives waves of retribution in artistic director Nicholas Winding Refn’s crime thriller Only God Forgives. Think Drive crossed with Bronson, set in Asia. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, imagine Ryan Gosling in a savagely violent, brooding…
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Makes the Wicked Witch seem nurturing
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![]() Sad, sweet and ultimately redemptive, Rails & Ties uses two tragic turns of event to trigger an ironic story about how character and hope can win out in the end. Likely to find an audience over time, this soulful movie is deeply cathartic for those touched by cancer, childless marriage, suicid…
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Like Father, Like Daughter
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![]() The FBI’s reputation takes a big blow in Richard Jewell, making Clint Eastwood’s movie about 1996 timely in 2019. Last week’s Justice Department IG report crushed any belief that the upper echelon of the FBI is the least bit trustworthy. That came years after the FBI didn’t pay attention "when …
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Mike Wallace interviews Jewell 6 year...
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![]() Anyone who’s dealt with an elderly parent will be charmed by Robot & Frank, a gentle and deft SciFi comedy. Perhaps the best Alzheimer’s movie yet, though the A Word is never mentioned, it carries an emotional kick that leavens it in the end, elevating it to more than just a lark. The gre…
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Teaching a robot to pick a lock
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![]() The good news about Rust and Bone is that it’s not about an orca trainer’s accident. It’s about her recovery. In any case, hers is only half the story, the rest being about an oafish stud with a small child in tow. What happens to father and son is tougher to take than what happens to her – …
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Communing Mammals: Human and Orca
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