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![]() Deaths in the family surround Casey Affleck’s New Englander, dragging him down and knocking him around in Manchester by the Sea. Kenneth Lonergan’s latest fractured-family film has been highly praised at film festivals and has Oscar buzz around it, especially for Affleck’s tortured performance….
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Before it all went to hell
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![]() An awkward title is about the only thing wrong with Blood Father, a terrific piece of pulp fiction starring a never better Mel Gibson. Bad Dad would be a better title, what with Bad Moms all over the multiplexes right now. That said, this dark…
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Mel knows AA meetings from real life.
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![]() Mongolian men have hunted with eagles for a millennium, an amazing partnership of human and raptor. Now the eagle hunters have welcomed a female, and a mere girl of 13 at that. This crisp documentary about that eagle huntress awes and uplifts in equal measure, the latter from its cheerful female …
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Drones were key to making the film.
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![]() The Force is with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, albeit weakly and episodically. Thus, this one-off Star Wars movie registers as a mildly tasty surprise while we endure the two year wait between major episodes. Rogue One tells the backstory of the Death Star, that ultimate weapon of mass de…
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Peter Cushing: ghost of Star Wars past
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![]() A professionally successful woman mystifies her foolish father in the brilliantly funny Toni Erdmann. Nominated this year for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, its comedy comes from the juxtaposition of unconditional love with highly conditional status, the former in a family, the latter in a mo…
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Woman on the verge of a breakdown
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![]() Al Pacino plays faux-rockstar Danny Collins like a demented Neal Diamond, complete with big singalong. Danny Collins instantly enters the Pacino Pantheon, Extreme Extrovert Wing. Rockstar Al is in the house. The film is entirely high concept, albeit inspired by a real story: John Lennon wro…
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The Story of Danny Collins
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![]() Yes I did and I’m glad I did, saw San Andreas, in 3D and everything. Having long since become a Californian, I felt ready for its disaster movie ethos of If you love something, destroy it on the big screen. Fortunately, San Andreas is a consummately manipulative and charming blockbuster….
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Sia's mournful California Dreaming
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![]() Nina Simone’s name and presence had occasionally penetrated my consciousness and always piqued my interest. Happily, this well done documentary finally brought her consequential music and politics alive. Dubbed the High Priestess of Soul, she was a unique and uniquely transfixing artist, fusin…
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Liz Garbus on her Nina Simone doc
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![]() Joy became more about Jennifer Lawrence than about Joy Mangano, the subject of this imaginative biopic. Even more, it became about JLaw reuniting with Bradley Cooper & Robert De Niro in a David O. Russell movie. Coming just three years after their Silver Linings Playbook…
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The real Joy talks about the movie Joy.
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![]() And So It Goes goes very well as a date night destination, especially for those of us who have received AARP junk mail. It’s a RomCom for the ages, the golden ages, which start pretty early these days. Diane Keaton & Michael Douglas are perfectly cast in this classic Rob Reiner RomCom. It’s …
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Modern Fam: Grandpa, Granddaughter, G...
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