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![]() Restoration refers to Britain’s casting off of Puritanism, a liberated time of royal hedonism and bawdy theater, from which a much lauded historical novel was derived. Add in Robert Downey Jr., Meg Ryan, Sam Neill and the stunning Polly Walker for cinematic firepower. Restoration is the resul…
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Polly Walker's stunning Royal Mistress
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![]() Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind and the Woodstock hippy-fest form an evocative backdrop for insightful drama in A Walk on the Moon. Sexy as hell, this 1999 movie features Diane Lane as a truly beautiful cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof and teenaged Anna Paquin as her too-hot-to-trot daughter, circ…
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Homemaker @ Woodstock
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![]() A Mormon missionary’s time in Tonga makes for an entertaining family movie, if you can leave the proselytizing aside. The Other Side of Heaven is also an appealing period piece, first in the 1950s United States, but mostly in the South Pacific Islands of that era. Based on the biography of …
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Before she was a star: Anne Hathaway
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![]() Grey Gardens is a fascinating biography of Jackie Kennedy’s aunt and cousin as they descend from high society to seedy eccentricity. The movie’s hardly worth seeking out, but eminently watchable for those interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous, the Hamptons, or all things Kennedy. …
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The real Beales.
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![]() Not your normal coming-of-age movie, this charming and engaging early-60s period piece seems likely to be remembered as Carey Mulligan’s coming-of-stardom vehicle. Carey who? That’s a question few will be asking after this splendid young star makes another movie or two. But wait, there’s m…
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The real Lynn Barber got "an education."
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Visually scintillating, musically avant-garde, dramatically turgid: This biopic of two cultural giants goes down like Brussels sprouts instead of foie gras. IOW, it takes effort to work through the two hour running time, when it should feel like savoring a rich delicacy. Pity, since Coco & Igor…
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Great design barely trumps turgid drama.
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![]() France et le Québec endured Jacques Mesrine’s spectacular 1960s and 70s criminal career, anointing him a media sensation in the process. The first half of this too-big-for-a-single-movie story gets told in Mesrine: Killer Instinct, the concluding chapters in Mesrine: Public Enemy #1:…
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Anti-hero: "Nobody kills me until I s...
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![]() Your Highness dons the trappings of Ye Olde English knights and damsels, mixes in sorcerers and pagan mythology, then filters the unholy brew through a 21st century slacker’s sensibility. Such low brow humor in high brow settings makes for a fun movie if you don’t mind tongue-deeply-in-cheek c…
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Low Brow Humor in High Brow Settings
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![]() David Chase & Little Stevie should’ve released Not Fade Away here in January, instead of at the October film festivals. It coulda been the first great movie of 2013. Instead it’s yet another great movie from 2012. OK, that ain’t chopped liver. Still, it coulda set the pace for the New Yea…
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What the kids wanted to be: Stones
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![]() King of the Hill is a real life Little Rascals, what with pipsqueak brothers living alone during the Great Depression. Amazingly, it’s the truthy autobiography of A.E. Hotchner, Paul Newman’s pal and business partner. Even if fictional, it would still charm and enlighten, as it’s a perfect fi…
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Charming and Enlightening
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