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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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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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Seminal movie, thy name is The Blue Angel, Der Blaue Engel in its native German. Josef von Sternberg was 36 when he paired unknown Marlene Dietrich with eminent Emil Jannings. Dietrich and von Sternberg rocketed straight to Hollywood. Jannings was left behind, kind of like in the story its…
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Falling In Love Again with Marlene
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Sweet soul music forms the soundtrack of this infectiously enjoyable Australian musical-comedy. Telling the truthy tale of four black girls from Down Under who performed American soul music for U.S. GIs and Marines in Vietnam, The Sapphires tickles, touches and torches in equal measure. Bla…
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The Sapphires' smoking hot What A Man
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The Coen Brothers latest is one of their best, strong praise indeed for the creators of classics that include The Big Lebowski, Intolerable Cruelty and Miller’s Crossing. Yet their evocation of a fictionalized early Sixties folk scene is pitch perfect. Star turns, outstanding songs and more tha…
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Justin & Carey sing Five Hundred Miles
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There’s No Business Like Show Business and there was no show business phonier than vaudeville, till movies. So an overtly phony movie about vaudeville makes for a phony convergence. It was perhaps the last of the musical extravaganzas, a calorically rich compendium of Irving Berlin’s showstoppi…
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Marilyn Monroe & Donald O'Connor: Sta...
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Aretha Franklin was never even that close to being one of my favorite soul singers. There, I’ve said it. That’s now chang…
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The most sought-after concert film? Yes!
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Yesterday is the best high-concept movie in recent memory. What if the entire world never knew of the Beatles? No Hey Jude, no Sgt. Peppers, no Revolution, no Fab Four. John, Paul, George & Ringo, just lads. Except one guy never forgot, a failed singer-songwriter who only needed one gr…
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The only singer who knows the Beatles
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Marilyn Monroe didn’t want to appear in River of No Return, nor did Otto Preminger want to direct it, especially if Marilyn was to star. Studio contracts forced them into it and we’re all the better for it today. River of No Return is a fine mid-Fifties Western, with surprising Italian root…
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Marilyn sings: Let it wash over you.
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In Old California is a simpleminded recreation of Old Sacramento in 1848 and then 1849, made in 1942. A quasi-historical tale, it mostly exists to showcase John Wayne looking quite-the-dandy, from Boston even. The settings are the thing now: pre-49er San Francisco and then up the river to Old…
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John Wayne, the Boston Dandy
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