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![]() Nice try, but Ender’s Game is barely a winner. Perhaps Orson Scott Card was right in saying his lauded SciFi novel is unfilmable. BrianSez and other fans of Card’s novel and its sequels may like it better than a newbie like me. I ha…
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What's going on in there Ender?
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![]() The greatest bromance movie of all time – charming, funny, deeply affecting – Lone Survivor is more importantly the Saving Private Ryan of our still young 21st Century. It viscerally depicts American heroes fighting my war against m…
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Greatest Bromance Movie of All Time
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![]() This time it’s war, talky-war but war indeed. The Games themselves are in the past when Part 1 of The Hunger Games finale opens. War aside, it’s as if this richly imagined and action-packed series pauses to catch its breath in its penultimate installment. Mockingjay – Part 1 features the s…
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Good Guys Don't Always Wear White
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![]() I’m loyal to Katniss Everdeen, so had to see the end of her story. Love can be painful and this movie was. Freighted with profound mournfulness, it’s simply too much and too long. Alas, The Hunger Games is ultimately high-toned YA, notwithstanding its often brilliant political grandstanding. Th…
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Love Hurts, Sweet Katniss
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![]() Nebraska is a triumph of character development and acting. Good thing, since the plot only goes from A to B – or from Billings to Omaha, which is further than A is from B, but not by much. It dyspeptically portrays Middle-American lives lived as nasty and brutish. Short too? No, long and …
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The toughest of them all: June Squibb
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![]() The elves dominate Hobbit 2. Coolest, prettiest, deadliest – they look especially good in the nearby poster. Orlando Bloom returns as Legolas; Evangeline Lilly joins as Tauriel, Chief of the Guards; moviestars both. But it’s not just martial elves that make this movie such a treat. Advent…
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The Fighting Legolas: Orlando Bloom
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![]() Middle-earth makes its final cinematic appearance in the richly satisfying conclusion to The Hobbit trilogy, putting paid to Peter Jackson’s once controversial decision to turn J.R.R. Tolkien’s slim novel into a three movie series. Nothing sparse about this finale, that’s for sure. In fact, …
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Swashbucklers: Evans & Bloom
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![]() The Wolf of Long Island celebrates a craven criminal: a coke snorting, lude popping, reverse Robin Hood. What’s that? The biopic about the demented Jordan Belfort is titled The Wolf of Wall Street. Really? He spent scant time there. Belfort and his entire operation are Long Islanders dow…
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Does this look like fun? Yes! No.
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![]() Noah is a mashup of Old Testament and Global Warming theologies, one antediluvian, one anti-economic. Oh yeah, there’s also lots of Hollywood fantasy thrown in to make it a 21st century basso profondo action epic. The bizarre result is often ridiculous, but ultimately worthwhile both theologi…
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Leaden & bizarre, yet also worthwhile
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![]() The hero of many a Tom Clancy story gets rebooted in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a more than competent action thriller. Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley and Kenneth Branagh are much more than competent as its starring quartet, allowing the movie to draw from a deep well of moviestar…
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Branagh the Dir employs a killer villain
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