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![]() Starched and stilted, Witness for the Prosecution nonetheless packs one hell of a punch at the end, with glorious detail throughout and a powerhouse cast who are the complete masters of their juicy roles. Nevermind that its theatrical roots show. Agatha Christie knew how to write for max view…
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Wilder angle: Dietrich looks up at Power
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![]() In the Cut deserves more than mere notoriety for a provocative title and Meg Ryan’s erotic performance, though the latter is monumental – No more RomComs for the RomCom Queen. – and vividly memorable. Slow starting, moody, Jane Campion’s movie finally turns fully creepy 30 min in, not a mome…
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The movie's better than the trailer.
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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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![]() Tragically hip alt-rock crosses over into madness in the under-titled Frank, about a charismatic band leader and his devoted bandmates. Here’s the thing: Frank wears a large fake head, all the time. Starting in Britain, Frank’s band brings on a guileless recruit before decamping for Ireland,…
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Frank plays guitar.
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![]() Gone Girl stirs the pot, no doubt about that. Premiering amidst the NFL-stoked domestic violence uproar, this sordid thriller about a wife’s murder is akin to throwing gas on a fire. But never mind all that societal stuff, is it a good movie? Yes, a great one, albeit far from perfect. The es…
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Smile! Oops, maybe not.
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![]() Devil In A Blue Dress is a twofer: a damn good neo-noir movie and an excellent 1940s L.A. period piece, from an African-American POV. Throw in a prime Denzel Washington performance and you’ve got a great movie, one that stands the test of time. Pity they never made a sequel. Taken from Walte…
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Denzel on Devil In A Blue Dress
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![]() The Conversation was one of Francis Ford Coppola’s celebrated early Seventies movies, nominated for Best Picture and winner of the Palme d’Or. Deeply accomplished, occasionally fascinating, a time capsule of San Francisco from 1973, it nonetheless disappoints all these decades later. The min…
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Coppola talks 'The Conversation' in 1974
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![]() Ava Gardner plays a moviestar inspired by Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart a writer-director inspired by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in The Barefoot Contessa, Mankiewicz’s takedown of movie business amorality. A glamorous movie about showbiz mendacity, it is both brilliantly self-aware and gorgeous t…
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Classic Golden Age Scene
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![]() Brad Pitt has his own great astronaut movie now, as every one of today’s great moviestars must.1 Ad Astra is a stately space epic, albeit punctuated with an atomic blast and more than a few death-defying set pieces. Most impressively, James Gray’s instant classic reinforces our conception of …
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The opening shots aren't in the movie.
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![]() What happens when a legendary detective drops in on the murder investigation of a major mystery writer? Rian Johnson’s latest complicated cinematic confection – Knives Out – is what happens. This Agatha Christy homage is loads of fun for nearly two hours. Unfortunately, it’s a 2 hour 10 minute … |