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![]() I’d turned up my nose at the Coen Brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty: too brightly lit, too obvious, too fake. Bad call on my part back in the day — Intolerable Cruelty is a really great movie. Too fake it’s not. Instead it’s wonderfully glib. Gorgeous too. Gorgeous George Clooney paired…
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Are you nuts? Have you forgotten Kirs...
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![]() A smug couple fights spectacularly over their narcissistic disappointments, with their immature worldview presented as the final word on family-centered suburban existence. Melodramatic, occasionally quite funny, flawlessly performed, supremely well made, Rev. Road is worth seeing if family tr…
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The classic novel behind the movie.
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![]() Ron Shelton made White Men Can’t Jump after Bull Durham and before Tin Cup. His sequence of great sports movies is thus baseball, basketball, golf. This middle one – his hoops hit – nailed the J with its title, even if the rest veers from perfection. White Men Can’t Jump was welcom…
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They've Got Game.
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![]() A woman on the edge propels the oh-so-smart drama in this almost too clever movie. The story turns back in on itself time and again, not fully revealing its convergence till the end. An ultimately satisfying twist does come, though not before we’re asked to hang in through lots of puzzlingly se…
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OK, not from the movie, but Jennifer!!
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Everybody’s damaged in Please Give. Most are awful, some sweet, all adrift. Misanthropic, it generates frequent laughs at the expense of these modern Manhattanites. Think a more seriously inclined Seinfeld – from the feminine side. Not that …
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Big sis Amanda Peet: Skin deep beauty
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![]() De Niro and Norton’s moviestar masterclass combined with austerely beautiful filmmaking elevates a formulaic story that trades heavily in caricature. Often darkly funny, occasionally LOL so, Stone surmounts its insufficient title by proving itself an involving experience.
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Moviestar Masterclass: De Niro & Norton
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![]() I find self-loathing shmucks more annoying than interesting. So Barney’s Version – about a dissolute TV exec played by the redoubtable Paul Giamatti – surprised me by deepening into an affecting and intriguing drama in its third reel. Based on Mordecai Richler’s final novel, its literary pedig…
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Solid acting enlivens a solid novel
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![]() The slang for corporate recruiter once connoted a frisson of danger. Then “Headhunter” lost its edge. Headhunters returns it and then some. An insanely funny thriller, it rivals fellow Scandinavian noir classic Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…
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This doesn't end well.
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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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![]() Not as good as it thinks it is or was cracked up to be, Prisoners nonetheless proves to be an involving, impressive and ultimately satisfying thriller. It’s worth being imprisoned inside a theater for 2½ hours. Yet sleazy storytelling-tricks weigh it down and a grimly enthusiastic desire t…
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Two men tortured by the same crime
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