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![]() Anti-denigration: The Great Debaters teaches us the root of ‘denigration’ and much more, especially how Wiley College’s debate team rose up to defend their rightful position as heirs to American greatness. Every history lesson should be this entertaining: Denzel Washington sees to that, dire… |
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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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![]() As essential to understanding China as Gone with the Wind is to understanding America, The Warlords brims with operatic history, passion, blood and beauty. GWTW romanticized the 1861 American Civil War; This 21st Century Chinese production romanticizes the – a – Chinese Civil War, also f…
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Slaughtering 4,000 men splits bloodbr...
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![]() Polish up the acceptance speeches. Changeling deserves a passel of trophies, though Best Picture isn’t one of them. The difficult story – while expertly told – ends up a mildly exhausting slog, one not worth enduring for anyone not wanting to visualize the most elemental of maternal nightmare… |
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![]() This great martial arts movie follows the beats and tropes of fictional king fu movies while burnishing the legend of Ip Man, a real life Grandmaster of Wing Chun kung fu and Bruce Lee’s teacher. The scene of an unarmed Master Ip facing down an armed Police Captain is a classic of the form. *I…
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Ip Man amid the Japanese occupation
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![]() Depp does Dillinger — directed by Mann, in Public Enemies. This was the most promising premiere of the summer, a perfect convergence of preeminent star in a role he was born to play – one of the most significant crime figures in American history – being directed by the maestro of high-style cr…
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Middle American Insouciance
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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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![]() Rock ‘em, sock ’em Holmes: Brilliant star Robert Downey Jr. turns the mythical detective into an action hero of the first order in Guy Ritchie’s rousing movie. Though a good show, its Jonesian hyper-reality might not be to every taste, notwithstanding today’s action movie fan expecting this sort…
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Lord Blackwood: Noble + Evil + Villain
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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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![]() This magnificent political biography also happens to be a very good movie. Not a great movie, but a great and important story, well told and even better acted by its two leads. Lessons in history and leadership should all be so charismatic. The movie has rhythms and totems unfamiliar to Amer…
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American superstars as African heroes
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