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The Frozen Ground
Good 17 Points 2013

The battle of the C’s: Its Nicholas Cage vs. John Cusak in this tale based on an Alaskan true story about an attempt to take down serial rapist-killer. Cage goes after the bad guy Cusak with gusto in this somewhat haphazardly put together script. Cusak makes a great psychopath, but the connectio…

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My Cousin Vinny
Good 66 Points 1992

My Cousin Vinny is best thought of today as Marisa Tomei’s breakthrough. Perfectly paired with a then peaking Joe Pesci, the 30-something Tomei won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for a comedy. Damn.

The movie itself is a genial send-up of stereotypes, Italian-American mostly. Delivered …

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Anchorman 2: Th...
Good 66 Points 2013

The Legend Continues and so do the laughs. Unfortunately so do the gaffes, which way outnumber the LOLs, driving the gaffe-to-laugh ratio well above 1. That’s far from great, even if some of the bits are truly great. Yes, you’ll laugh YAO early & often enough, so one can say The Legend C…

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WikChip Video Good, Bad & Ugly: Carell, Ferrell, Team
Masterminds
Good 83 Points 2016

Masterminds starts off rock-and-roll, but soon becomes dumb-and-dumber, only not so funny or charming. Loosely “based on a true story”, it oscillates between parody and homage, albeit more the former given its deep SNL roots. Unfortunately, TV-quality sketch comedy bits don’t a great movie make…

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WikChip Video Comedy Great: Kate McKinnon
The Other Side ...
OK 66 Points 2001

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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WikChip Image Before she was a star: Anne Hathaway
The Witch
OK 17 Points 2015

The acting is great, and Anya Taylor-Joy sure is cute, but there isn’t enough “there there” to save The Witch. What is supposed to be a scary witch-flick set where it is supposed to be: creepy dark woods in 1700’s new England, the movie just ends up being too slow and meandering, with a climax…

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The Greatest Sh...
OK 66 Points 2017

The Greatest Showman is …who again… Hugh Jackman or P.T. Barnum? This is Barnum’s biopic but Jackman’s show, designed to feature who? Jackman, singing and strutting as only Hugh Jackman can do.

The Greatest Showman’s greatest problem is that Jackman likes to be liked. Unfortunately, lik…

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WikChip Video "Everything you'll ever want?" Uh, no.
Paint Your Wagon
OK 66 Points 1969

A big budget disaster when it came out at the end of the Sixties, Paint Your Wagon is a modestly entertaining extravaganza today. Faint praise? Indeed, for a musical comedy that is long on star power and short on memorable songs and effective humor.

Oh yeah, it’s also long on time. I watc…

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WikChip Image Jean Seberg: lovely, not distinctive
King of California
OK 84 Points 2007

Well intentioned flop: the comedy never inspires laughs and the drama never hits home. Nonetheless, the great concept – oddball father drags practical daughter on a real treasure hunt through modern day suburbia – and the likable performances by Evan Rachel Wood and Michael Douglas make this wat…

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The Wild One
OK 66 Points 1953

The Wild One is an iconic movie better now as an iconic image and line than a motion picture experience. The image? Marlon Brando as an outlaw biker, inspiring popular culture for the next half-century. The line?

Whattaya got?

You don’t have to be a Jeopardy whiz to k…

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WikChip Image "Whattaya got?"