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![]() Popcorn movies should all be this strong. Channeling Indiana Jones’ 1940s movie tropes, Marvel’s First Avenger proves engaging from the outset, exciting from the middle and exhilarating to the end. Notwithstanding a pair of underwhelming leads, the overall strong cast, irony-free patriotism …
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Devastating parody of Nazi racial ins...
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![]() It’s a romantic thriller. No wait, it’s a lame sorta scifi story that never really adds up. Pity, because the strong cast works well, with romantic leads Matt Damon and Emily Blunt demonstrating real chemistry. How does a misfire like The Adjustment Bureau get made? You can just see the…
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![]() Win Win has become such a cliche, yet is anything but in the entirely winning movie of that title. Cleverly mining today’s uneven economy, the uneasy equality of modern marriages, the unjust world of neglected kids, and not least, the under-appreciated sport of high school wrestling, Win Win…
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Who says meaningful auteur cinema is ...
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![]() Lots of pretty people delivering razor sharp comedy atop an idiotic premise makes for a very good movie. The central conceit of Our Idiot Brother – Paul Rudd’s absurdly guileless fool, a.k.a. the Idiot Brother – gets just this side of tedious however. Fortunately the whole thing is more than a…
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Elizabeth Banks: Uptown Gorgeous
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![]() The matchless mind of Guillermo del Toro comes through on his biggest canvas yet. His Pacific Rim is perfectly attuned to the neural frequencies of 13 year-old males. Yield to it, be one with it, drift inside its richly envisioned adolescent outlook, and the movie is a near continuous tickle….
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Yup, this movie just got turned up to...
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![]() Guardians of the Galaxy is an overstuffed taco of a superhero movie, chockfull of countless characters, considerable whimsy and confounding story lines. The crazy-ass result approaches blockbuster perfection. Star Trek for a New Generation? Absolutely, complete with a basso-profundo destroy…
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Who are the Guardians of the Galaxy?
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![]() Ironic Man returns for a third iteration with his emotional suit of armor in place, humorously deflecting intimacy from friends, foes, lovers and ex-lovers. OK, not all gets deflected. There are several close calls, even a few breakdowns. Hell, there are panic attacks. Hey, it worked in the S…
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Primo bad guy allows an Avenger to soar
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![]() Oliver Stone loves making drug-trade movies, war movies and especially drug war movies. So a California drug war makes an ideal subject for his obsessions. Savages – the title flaunts its nihilistic appeal – fills the bill. Speaking of flaunting, Stone’s movie sports rich ingredients but nev…
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Salma Hayek -- Cleopatra Kingpin
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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. It’s kind of a crime caper invol…
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Leading men, now & then: Matthew & Tye
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![]() The Way, Way Back is the perfect summer movie from this Summer of `13. It opens and closes with a painfully awkward teen in the late, lamented way-way-back of a 1970 Buick Estate Station Wagon. In between he spends a life-changing summer at the beach house of his mom’s asshole boyfriend, pl…
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Awkward boy meets way, way cool girl
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