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![]() The Sound of Music is one of those iconic films that everyone should see. Perhaps for some, it will entail some suffering through 60’s era cliches and life-glossed-over portrayals, but it does entertain. Julie Andrews was in her prime and Christopher Plummer is the happiest you’ll ever see of h…
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![]() Hardly a chick flick, though focused predominantly on a doomed love affair and populated largely by talkative females, Atonement delivers its real wallop when it goes to war, offering a stunning battle scene not out of place in the first rank of war movies. A legitimate Best Picture candidat…
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![]() A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. The sugar: a terrific love story. The medicine: the wanton cruelty and dehumanization endemic to the nascent Soviet Union. Director David Lean – King of the Epics – reunited with Omar Sharif and several essential crew members from "Lawrence of Ar…
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They don't make 'em like they used to.
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![]() Essential though Patton may be – as war movie, as American history, as biopic – it’s not the epochal statement the Academy thought they were canonizing with seven Oscars in 1971, including Best Picture. Back then Frances Ford Coppola’s script seemed subversive, undermining American militarism …
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If I had my way, I'd meet Rommel F2F.
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![]() A deserved classic, this aptly titled movie features giant stars, a ginormous mansion incongruously stuck in the heart of the giant state of Texas, a running time that exceeds three hours and giant story elements. It all works amazingly well, never seeming drawn-out or boring, notwithstanding a …
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Legendary stars in a provocative pose.
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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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![]() The Coen Brothers are writers as much as directors, making Barton Fink – a satiric tribute to tortured writers and the demonic pull of Hollywood – more than a little self-reverential. Oops, did I say reverential? Referential, self-referential. Either way, it’s one of their best movies, not…
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"It's the carrot that wags the dog." ...
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![]() Considered by many to contain Tyrone Power’s finest performance as an actor(admittedly not setting the bar too high here) “NIghtmare Alley” is a noirish psychological thriller about an ambitious sleazebag who enters the world of carnys with the goal of getting really good as one of those phony fo… |
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![]() Defiance is a white horse of a movie, telling an improbable and previously little known story that seems too good to be true. Anglo-Saxon star Daniel Craig playing Jewish partisan Tuvia Bielski adds to the fable. A must see for Jews and other WWII buffs, the movie delivers plenty of action, i…
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Action Hero: The real Tuvia Bielski
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![]() Preston Sturges made RomComs that are funny, sexy, glamorous, clever and sophisticated. The Lady Eve proves the point. It still works three quarters of a century later, especially with the proto-modern Barbara Stanwyck as the minx in the middle of a screwball con-game extraordinaire. Modern…
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The Lady Eve dress by Edith Head
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