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![]() Five big-names starring in “the best period film”1 make Steven Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons really great. Frears, he of The Queen, employs Michelle Pfeiffer, Glen Close, a nubile Uma Thurmond and a horny John Malkovich in bringing Christopher Hampton’s …
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They are impressive. The cast, that is.
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![]() More a wartime romantic mystery than anything, A Secret is nonetheless as fine a Holocaust picture as you’ll find. Being French, it’s also a sensual love story, or two. Let’s start at the beginning even though the movie starts in the middle. A supremely athletic and thoroughly assimilated …
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Cécile De France: lithe object of desire
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![]() Lesser Tarantino but accomplished Tarantino still, Jackie Brown sports a full house of his filmic qualities. Half a dozen stars unspool a cockamamie but coherent story over 2½ hours, complete with bad guys taking each other out, sudden ends and funny surprises. Then there’s the down and dirty…
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Now that's a cast!
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![]() Hard rocking and heart warming, Crazy Heart creates an Outlaw Country icon out of whole cloth, complete with instantly classic songs and Jeff Bridge’s iconic personification. Best Actor worthy? Hell yes. Rueful, funny and incisive, this tale of alcoholic rock-bottom and the redeeming power…
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Kristofferson? Nope, Bridges as Bad B...
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![]() In the Cut deserves more than mere notoriety for a provocative title and Meg Ryan’s erotic performance, though the latter is monumental – No more RomComs for the RomCom Queen. – and vividly memorable. Slow starting, moody, Jane Campion’s movie finally turns fully creepy 30 min in, not a mome…
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The movie's better than the trailer.
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![]() The silver screen has never seen a contemporary ideal the likes of Katniss Everdeen, male or female. Jennifer Lawrence’s rise to superstardom is wrapped up in her personification of this revolutionary hero, this secular Joan of Arc for our post-modern times. J.Law channels J.Arc to become K.E…
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They have relationship issues.
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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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![]() Celebrity, genius, marital complexity and misguided idealism collide in this loose recreation of Leo Tolstoy’s last year on earth. A resplendent movie – Helen Mirren’s performance and costumes alone are worth the price of admission – The Last Station doesn’t require the viewer to know that Cou…
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Sofya seduced her husband time & again.
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Out of Sight and into the pantheon of crime-comedies – start with Stephen Soderburgh directing George Clooney in an Elmore Leonard story. Speaking of gorgeous, J-Lo gets into the trunk with G-Cloo.
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Other positives: Bright bluesy opening; Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films producing; Clooney, youn…
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Trunk Spooning: Meet Cute Classic
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![]() Male bonding, tragic beauty and fly fishing merge into one – and exceptional writing runs through it. With apologies to Norman Maclean, that takeoff from his lauded autobiographical novella describes this treasured movie of the same name. Beautifully constructed by director and narrator Robert …
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Even the trailer brings a lump to the...
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