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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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Clint Eastwood does U.S. history – again, here essaying one of the 20th Century’s most consequential Americans. There were times during J. Edgar when it seemed to warrant a 4 Star Great, but couldn’t maintain it, falling back in the end to a respectable 3 Star Good. Thus, history buffs and fa…
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Handsome Couple, and Mother
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The Town – a beefy treat for fans of crime drama from Ben Affleck, now a writer-director-star triple threat. Staying close to his boyhood home, Affleck romanticizes bank robbers from the Irish-American projects adjacent to prosperous Boston. When one of them falls for the manager of a bank th…
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Ultimate Boston Movie: Robbing Fenway...
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The Guard touches perfection here and there, is otherwise mostly great, but gets held back by a merely OK screenplay. Fortunately a crafty Brendan Gleeson drives plenty of deadpan comedy for a very good movie. So what if it’s not a classic. It’s got brilliant visuals, a handful of LOLs and…
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Dominique McElligott, r. Sarah Greene...
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Prime Clint, the reluctant avenging hero, forced here to battle a faulty heart and a cleverly playful serial killer. This understated classic proves that even Eastwood’s minor movies tend to be tautly paced, cleverly constructed and richly satisfying. The clever construction comes from the co…
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Wanda De Jesus: Clint loves strong wo...
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Less an LOL comedy than one that keeps you in a semi-sustained semi-grin, The Family has lots to like if not enough to love. Luc Besson’s Mafia satire does score easily and often, with major stars delivering most of its best lines. They each shine brightly, though not in the order you might e…
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Dickhead boys get taught a lesson.
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A big, bawdy brouhaha of a movie, David O. Russell’s followup to Silver Linings Playbook never fails to entertain, especially in recreating the Seventies. Yet it never coheres to a point. It’s all pointless seems to be its point. Silver Linings Playbook…
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JLaw's nut nukes nuke, blames husband.
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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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Excellent movie about the final days of turncoat FBI agent Robert Hanssen. For current events junkies, it seems like just yesterday that his February 2001 arrest was front page news. Looking back, it was the final coda to the Cold War, occuring just months before the long war of the current ce… |
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Spielberg deploys DiCaprio, Walken & Hanks to great effect in the true-crime whopper Catch Me If You Can, the biopic of wunderkind conman Frank Abagnale. Spielberg’s film was a period-piece hoot when it premiered in 2002, depicting a 60s & 70s America that felt distant even then and is downrigh…
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Frank Abagnale does Google
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