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![]() Source Code’s a challenging movie to like. I found myself not liking it for the first half, then kinda liking it, then really liking it, only to back off at the end to kinda really liking it. Complicated? Yep, complexity overload is part of its problem. Yet Duncan Jones’ sophomore picture r…
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Michelle Monaghan: Adorable Deamgirl
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![]() When it comes to grading Smokin’ Aces, I’m splitting the difference between Spaceghost’s Really Great and BrianSez’s Barely OK. My Good reflects the movie’s stellar cast and glimmering Vegas visuals. That said, it ain’t good in any moral sense. In fact it’s a sociopathic cesspool that not on…
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FBI partners Ryan Reynolds & Ray Liotta
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![]() Narco-gang depravity meets its match when things go military on the Mexican border in Sicario, Spanish for “hitman”. A semi-successful Emily Blunt rebels against this turn of events. Semi-successful? Her performance, not her rebellion, which is unsuccessful. Yet the movie is much more than semi…
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Coming Thru!!
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![]() The FBI’s reputation takes a big blow in Richard Jewell, making Clint Eastwood’s movie about 1996 timely in 2019. Last week’s Justice Department IG report crushed any belief that the upper echelon of the FBI is the least bit trustworthy. That came years after the FBI didn’t pay attention "when …
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Mike Wallace interviews Jewell 6 year...
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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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![]() Patriots Day gets up close and personal with the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath. By turns moving, enraging, loving and occasionally funny, it’s an unflinching look at lone wolf terrorism and how one American city fought back against Islamism in their midst. Two previously unseen aspe…
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The Battle of Watertown
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Out of Sight and into the pantheon of crime-comedies – start with Stephen Soderburgh directing George Clooney in an Elmore Leonard story. Speaking of gorgeous, J-Lo gets into the trunk with G-Cloo.
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Other positives: Bright bluesy opening; Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films producing; Clooney, youn…
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Trunk Spooning: Meet Cute Classic
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![]() Spectacular calamity followed by impressive vengeance makes Olympus Has Fallen an amply satisfying cinematic experience. So what if it’s jingoism. It’s extremely well executed jingoism, by jingo! Patriotic action-movie fans – like me – happen to like this sort of button-pushing entertainment…
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Stunts and FX make the movie.
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![]() London Has Fallen is a distinct improvement over Olympus Has Fallen, making it a 1st-rate action movie. The sequel improves the original by having a plausible villain, albeit amidst an equally implausible story. Throw in several well-earned laughs – amid the carnage – and you’ve got a helluva…
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How They Made It
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![]() Lesser Tarantino but accomplished Tarantino still, Jackie Brown sports a full house of his filmic qualities. Half a dozen stars unspool a cockamamie but coherent story over 2½ hours, complete with bad guys taking each other out, sudden ends and funny surprises. Then there’s the down and dirty…
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Now that's a cast!
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