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The Birth of a ...
Very Good 83 Points 2016

Why don’t slaves revolt? In the South two centuries ago, in the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust or even in Asia now? The Birth of a Nation helps answer that complicated question. Unfortunately the movie itself is complicated. Its creators apparently raped a woman while college students in 19…

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WikChip Image Nate Parker's movie: engaging & affec...
Hacksaw Ridge
Great 83 Points 2016

Okinawa was once a byword for the savagery of war. Hacksaw Ridge plumbs the depths of that savagery and the grace that also attended it in the form of Medal of Honor recipient Desmond Doss. A conscientious objector, Doss was unsurpassed in bravery, personally rescuing 75 wounded men from the "t…

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WikChip Video Vince Vaughn talks war movie
Allied
Great 83 Points 2016

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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WikChip Video Brad, Marion & Zemeckis talk Allied
The Founder
Great 83 Points 2016

The Founder is about the creation of McDonalds, if not necessarily about the founders of McDonalds. Those would be the McDonald brothers, not Ray Kroc, the salesman who turned their creation into a world-changing commercial juggernaut. Michael Keaton dominates this movie, just as Kroc did the M…

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WikChip Video Backstory of The Founder
Hidden Figures
Great 83 Points 2016

Behind every successful man is a strong woman, three in the case of John Glenn and the Mercury Seven astronauts — strong black women in fact, smart too, very smart. Hidden Figures smartly tells their tale, a can’t-miss concoction of civil rights, space race and romantic drama. Lots of star powe…

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WikChip Video Great Women. Great Americans. Great M...
Dunkirk
Really Great 83 Points 2017

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk sets a new standard in faux cinéma vérité, so extreme is its IMAX-sized verisimilitude. As to its subject, it’s not as if the Miracle of Dunkirk has been ignored in World War II movies, most recently forming the backdrop of Their Finest

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WikChip Video Historical Context of Dunkirk
American Made
Very Good 83 Points 2017

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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WikChip Video Great trailer lies from the start.
Joy
Great 83 Points 2015

Joy became more about Jennifer Lawrence than about Joy Mangano, the subject of this imaginative biopic. Even more, it became about JLaw reuniting with Bradley Cooper & Robert De Niro in a David O. Russell movie. Coming just three years after their Silver Linings Playbook

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WikChip Video The real Joy talks about the movie Joy.
Darkest Hour
Great 83 Points 2017

Instead of The King’s Speech, Darkest Hour is The Prime Minister’s Speeches, Churchill’s speeches at the outset of WWII. It fixates on Sir Winston’s galvanizing addresses to Parliament and the British people during the darkest hour for the UK, and for all of civilization. His words ignited …

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WikChip Video Even the trailer is stirring!
Masterminds
Good 83 Points 2016

Masterminds starts off rock-and-roll, but soon becomes dumb-and-dumber, only not so funny or charming. Loosely “based on a true story”, it oscillates between parody and homage, albeit more the former given its deep SNL roots. Unfortunately, TV-quality sketch comedy bits don’t a great movie make…

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WikChip Video Comedy Great: Kate McKinnon