Category: Movie Reviews
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Forgotten Gem: John Carpenter’s Halloween 35th Anniversary Edition finally comes to High Def
Halloween – 1978 Director John Carpenter Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, P.J. Soles, Nancy Loomis, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews Screenplay Carpenter and Debra Hill The Shape. The Innocence. The piano score. The lens that showed the danger just out of focus, and then in focus. Just for a second. The leaves that blow in, almost…
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The Place Beyond the Pines: Eva Mendes is still beautiful
The Place Beyond The Pines – 2013 Director Derek Cianfrance Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Harris Yulin, Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen Screenplay by Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, Darius Marder There is a scene early in The Place Beyond the Pines in which Luke is told by the grandmother of a child he never…
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The Bling Ring: Crime in the Google age.
The Bling Ring – 2013 Written & Directed by Sofia Coppola Starring Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Taissa Farmiga, Claire Julien, Georgia Rock, Emma Watson, Leslie Mann The most striking thing about The Bling Ring is the ease with which the kids were able to move in and out of the lives of the rich and famous. In a time when Hollywood reaction to…
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The Lords of Salem: So much wrinkly naked flesh
The Lords of Salem – 2012 Writer & Director Rob Zombie Starring Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Ken Foree, Patricia Quinn, Dee Wallace, María Conchita Alonso, Judy Geeson, Meg Foster There are better things that one could see at the beginning of a movie than a series of wrinkled old hags praising Satan and condemning our Lord and Savior. There are…
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist: What is the Pakistani dream?
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – 2012 Director Mira Nair Starring Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, Martin Donovan Screenplay William Wheeler Written by Mohsin Hamid and Ami Boghani I am thankful for the cinematic voice that is Mira Nair. Who else could take a subject as potentially divisive as a man’s movement from a devoted…
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Oblivion: A nice, unoriginal Sci-Fi story with great visual flair
Oblivion – 2013 Director Joseph Kosinski Starring Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo, Morgan Freeman Screenplay Joseph Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek, Michael Arndt So many elements are borrowed from other sources in Oblivion, it’s remarkable that it ends up as cohesive as it is. That the sources all derive from the more contemplative sci-fi of the 1970’s may have something to do…
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The Iceman just wants to be a landlord
The Iceman – 2013 Director Ariel Vroman Starring Michael Shannon, Winona Rider, Chris Evans, Ray Liotta, James Franco, David Schwimmer, Stephen Dorff, Erin Cummings, Robert Davi Screenplay by Vroman and Morgan Land No one can economize a performance like Michael Shannon. His countenance is always sober, but seething underneath. His performance in Man of Steel was a thankless…
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Now You See Me is a cute date that vanishes after the show
Now You See Me – 2013 Director Louis Leterrier Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Mélanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Common, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelley, Elias Koteas Screenplay Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt Now You See Me is the kind of trick that shows you how its done while its setting you up for the next trick. Four magicians (Eisenberg, Fisher, Harrelson and Franco)…
Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews 