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SPIDER-MAN:
HOMECOMING
(PG-13)  1/2
A
not entirely amazing return home
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
marks the second time in 15 years that Marvel Comics' most iconic property
has been cinematically rebooted.
Let that settle
in for a bit.
After the Sam
Raimi quarterbacked and Tobey Maguire Spidey trilogy of the early to late
2000's (two of which were great, with the last film being overstuffed and
undisciplined) came the Mark Webb helmed grittier and darker reboot...
Posted
July 17,
2017
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T2:
TRAINSPOTTING (R) 1/2
A
wasteful overdose of nostalgia
The
original TRAINSPOTTING, make no mistake about it, was a seminal film of
the 1990's and one that had an immediate and seismic impact on the movie
pop culture of its decade. Danny
Boyle's multiple Oscar nominated drug infused black comedy not only helped
cement its director as a unique new filmmaking maverick with an ultra
intense kinetic and hallucinatory aesthetic, but it also established
its star Ewan McGregor as a future Hollywood A-lister...
Posted
July 17,
2017
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THE
HOUSE (R)
Failing
to double down on Ferrell and Poehler
There's a scene
in the new comedy THE HOUSE that features a deranged Will Ferrell wielding
an axe while threatening to hurt a compulsive gambler that was caught
cheating while at his own home run underground casino.
I couldn't decide
whether I should have found this positively hysterical or positively
frightening...
Posted
July 8,
2017
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BABY
DRIVER
(R) 
Of
autos and iPads
BABY DRIVER shows
writer/director Edgar Wright at the absolute zenith of his technical
filmmaking prowess. After taking a
far-too-long sabbatical from his last film, 2013's underrated THE
WORLD'S END (the third film in his self-anointed Cornetto Trilogy,
comprised of 2007's HOT FUZZ and 2004's SHAUN
OF THE DEAD), the British filmmaker has made a triumphant return
in this joyously energized, audaciously crafted, and robustly creative
heist action thriller...
Posted
July 8,
2017
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TRANSFORMERS:
THE LAST KNIGHT
(R) 1/2
Marky
Mark and his funky robot bunch return
Once again I had
to suffer through yet another nonsensically plotted, horrendously
overproduced, and self indulgently long TRANSFORMERS sequel. As I left the
cinema in stupefied silence and consumed with feelings of absolute
worthlessness and emptiness, I tried to ponder the mindsets of the
creative forces behind this creatively bankrupt endeavor...
Posted
July 8,
2017
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THE
BELKO EXPERIMENT (R) 1/2
An
experiment not worth conducting
I have no idea
what kind of film THE BELKO EXPERIMENT was trying to be, which ultimately
made for an endlessly frustrating viewing experience for me. It contains a
premise that, on paper, is wondrously ripe for potential as a cutting edge
satire on workplace office culture, but instead the film monotonously and
nauseatingly becomes an gory orgy of sadistic violence...
Posted
July 8,
2017
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MEGAN
LEAVEY (PG-13) 
Tales
of a canine war hero
MEGAN
LEAVEY is a new fact based war drama about a particular subject matter
that rarely, if ever, gets covered for these types of genre films:
military K-9 units that serve with the fighting men and women on the
frontlines. War films have
been a relative and proverbial dime-a-dozen over the course of the last
several decades, so imbuing them with newfangled freshness proves to be a rather daunting challenge for
filmmakers...
Posted
June 27,
2017
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IT
COMES AT NIGHT (R)
A
reverse engineered zombie thriller
Just
before I screened IT COMES AT NIGHT I watched three trailers for upcoming
horror thrillers. All of them
were edited in exactly the same way. All of them had the exact same jump scare music cues.
And all of them suffered from repetitive sameness and felt wholly
and disposable interchangeable. None
of them made me enthusiastic about this well worn genre; there wasn't an
iota of creativity present within them...
Posted
June 27,
2017
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AFTERMATH
(R) 1/2
The
last inaction hero
Actors
usually become substantially more compelling on screen as they grown
older, wiser and reach the tail end of their careers. Arnold
Schwarzenegger is no exception, not because he wasn't an authoritative
screen presence in a multitude of his past films, but rather because now -
at a relatively ripe old age of 69 - he's beginning to tackle more subtle
and introverted parts that play up to his advancing years.
Gone are the days when Au-nald can plausibly play unstoppable chiseled
behemoths...
Posted
June 27,
2017
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THE
MUMMY
(PG-13)
A
franchise starter that's best left buried
Tom Cruise hardly
needs defending. He's one of the
most dependably and consistently bankable movie stars on the planet and,
as far as his peers are concerned, is one of the pre-eminent cinematic showman of his
generation. He puts his body
and life on the limb for his art in incalculably crazy ways that has to be
commended. At a ripe, yet
super humanly youthful looking 54-years old...
Posted
June 17,
2017
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BAYWATCH
(R) 1/2
A
washed up comedic dead zone
I'll
start this review with a very simple and beyond obvious question: Was anyone on
planet Earth really clamoring for a big budget movie adaptation...of
BAYWATCH?
I pose this
question after just having seen the extremely wrongheaded and pitifully
awful CHiPS, another large scale silver screen appropriation of a small
screen program. BAYWATCH
tries, I think, to be a would-be uproarious send-up of the original
1980's/1990's TV show...
Posted
June 17,
2017
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A
CURE FOR WELLNESS (R) 1/2
A
lushly shot mess of a psychological horror
thriller
Gore
Verbinski's A CURE FOR WELLNESS is one of those head scratching films that
leaves you with overwhelming feelings that it should be infinitely better
than the final product. The film marks a
return to the psychological horror genre that the filmmaker once tackled
early on in his career with THE RING, not to mention that, visually at
least, it's as breathtakingly shot and endlessly sumptuous to look at as
anything he's made...
Posted
June 17,
2017
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WONDER
WOMAN
(PG-13)
A
beacon of hope for the DCEU...and comic
book movies
As a boy I
fondly remember growing up and worshipping Richard Donner's SUPERMAN: THE
MOVIE and how that film elicited in my young mind equal sensations of
limitless awe, wonder, and unbridled joy as a fan of super heroes and
comic books. For the first
time ever, I marveled at the exploits of the Man of Steel and, despite
his extraterrestrial nature and godlike powers, he felt like a relatable
average Joe to me. Superman
simply felt...real...
Posted
June 6,
2017
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PIRATES
OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD
MEN TELL NO TALES
(PG-13) 1/2
A
sequel that's creatively walking the plank
The PIRATES OF
THE CARIBBEAN cinematic universe has always maintained a love/hate
relationship with many film critics. The first one
way, way back in 2013 was infinitely better than any film based on a
popular amusement park ride had any business of being.
THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL was triumphant in overcoming pre-release
negative press and emerging as a genuine original for the swashbuckling
pirate genre...
Posted
June 5,
2017
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WAR
MACHINE (No
MPAA Rating) 1/2
A
war satire with a script that needs liberating
The
new Netflix Original Film WAR MACHINE - based on the 2012 nonfiction book
THE OPERATORS by Michael Hastings - is a semi-fictionalized chronicle of
the firing of U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, who led a team in
Afghanistan back in the late 2000's.
Names and details have been changed in the film, but WAR MACHINE is
not endeavoring to be a facts oriented docudrama, but rather
an ultra black comedy and satire about America's troubled history in the
Middle East...and the moral chaos and ethical madness of war and combat in
general...
Posted
June 5,
2017
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ALIEN:
COVENANT (R)
In
space...no one can hear you *sigh*
Ridley Scott's
2012 sci-fi thriller PROMETHEUS - his
first behind the camera at the time since 1982's BLADE
RUNNER - was released to much audience and critical polarization.
The first film in a proposed sort-of-a-prequel, but not-exactly-a-prequel
trilogy to Scott's 1979 franchise starter ALIEN,
PROMETHEUS did, in my estimation, what great series films - sequel or prequel - should
do: Take the established mythology and audaciously take it in fresh new
directions...
Posted
May 27,
2017
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SNATCHED
(R) 1/2
Not
putting the "fun" in "unrefundable"
For
all intents and purposes, the new odd couple road comedy SNATCHED should
have been a proverbial home run. It stars Amy Schumer, who made
a very auspicious cinematic debut starring in and writing Judd Apatow's TRAINWRECK. Her co-star is Hollywood legend Goldie Hawn, coming out of a
long retirement since last appearing in 2002's THE BANGER SISTERS.
And SNATCHED's director is Jonathan Levine, whom previously helmed a
couple terribly underrated comedies in 50/50
and WARM BODIES...
Posted
May 27,
2017
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KING
ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
(PG-13)
King
Arthur Begins
KING ARTHUR:
LEGEND OF THE SWORD is the seemingly umpteenth retelling of the classic
Arthurian legend, only this time heavily amping up on the pure fantastical
elements. Directed with
enthusiasm - perhaps a bit too much for his own good...more on that later
- by Guy Ritchie (whom previously retooled another iconic property in SHERLOCK
HOLMES)...
Posted
May 20,
2017
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THE
WALL (R) 1/2
A
refreshingly insular look at a larger conflict
Not to be
confused with THE GREAT WALL from
earlier this year, THE WALL is a new American War film that's a frequently
masterful exercise in minimalist filmmaking economy. Featuring three
actors (one of which appears in voice only off camera) and containing a
singular setting throughout its taut and lean 81 minutes, the film is not
so much a war film or a commentary on the nature of war, per se, as much
as it is a chillingly suspenseful outdoor survival thriller...
Posted
May 20,
2017
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FIFTY
SHADES DARKER (R) 1/2
Someone
should permanently cover up this franchise
Staring at a
blank white wall for two plus hours would have been a more erotic
experience than watching FIFTY SHADES DARKER, the second film in the -
dear God, help us all - trilogy of films based on the popular literary
series by E.L. James (I'm using the term "literary"
ever-so-loosely). A follow-up film
to 2015's FIFTY SHADES OF GREY,
this sequel makes miniscule improvements over its antecedent...
Posted
May 20,
2017
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GUARDIANS
OF THE GALAXY: VOL 2
(PG-13) 1/2
Too
much volume, not enough substance
2012's
GUARDIANS
OF THE GALAXY had no business being as financially successful -
and good, for that matter - as it was, seeing as it was a real
creative Hail Mary by Marvel and Disney to take a C-grade and virtually
unknown comic book property and somehow make it mainstream.
The highly risky gamble paid off handsomely, as the film not only
become one of the most cherished in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
but this humble critic coveted it so much that he put it on his list of
the Ten Best Films of its year...
Posted
May 12, 2017
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THE
CIRCLE
(PG-13)
A
Big Brother thriller that needs tech
support
THE CIRCLE is a
very dumb movie about some very smart ideas and themes. What makes the
experience of watching it all the more frustrating and disappointing is
that there's real talent both in front of and behind the camera. Based on the 2013
cautionary tech thriller novel of the same name by David Eggers, this film
adaptation is directed by James Ponsoldt, whom previously made one of the of
the best coming of age romance dramas of recent memory in the criminally
under-seen THE SPECTACULAR NOW...
Posted
May 12, 2017
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FREE
FIRE (R)
An
antiquated Tarantino knock-off
Remember
back in the early to mid 1990's when Quentin Tarantino burst onto the
movie scene with RESERVOIR DOGS
and PULP FICTION, which showcased
his highly unique amalgam of blood curdling violence and poetically
verbose and pop culture riffing criminal degenerates?
I know.
I do too. Good times...
Posted
April 30, 2017
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GIFTED
(PG-13)
A
family drama bestowed with richly textured
characters
GIFTED,
at least on paper, certainly sounds like one of those cheaply melodramatic
feel-good TV movies of the week. It concerns a brilliant
female math prodigy - just 7-years-old - that becomes embroiled in a child custody hearing between her
grandmother and her uncle, the latter which has cared for the "gifted" youngling since she was a baby,
during which time her mother
committed suicide. The
overall premise of this film for me going in was a real turn-off...
Posted
April 30, 2017
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PHOENIX
FORGOTTEN (PG-13)
A
found footage thriller starved of innovation
My overall
appetite for found footage films has been seriously waning over the
years, and very few recent examples (like PROJECT
ALMANAC and INTO THE STORM)
haven't given me any serious reason to renew my past enthusiasm for this tired
and rapidly running out of gas genre. PHOENIX FORGOTTEN
is yet another example of the found footage thriller that appropriates most of its
aesthetic accouterments...
Posted
April 30, 2017
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THE
FATE
OF THE FURIOUS
(PG-13) 1/2
A
series that's showing signs of stalling
Remember way, way
back in 2001 when the first FAST AND FURIOUS film was released, well
before it improbably spawned seven sequels and grossed $4 billion in
global ticket sales? Looking back it's
quite amazing to consider that it was, for all intents and purposes, a
not-so-subtle POINT BREAK knock-off about the underground world of street
racing that involved crooks illegally racing their souped up muscle cars
and imports when they weren't stealing DVD players...
Posted
April 23, 2017
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THE
ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE
(PG-13)
The
Holocaust via a different unseen lens
As
a student of history, I've always found the historical war genre to be
right up my alley.
In particular, I appreciate films that find a unique viewfinder
through which to look at and examine past events that we think have been
covered from all possible angles. There have been countless dramas about World War II and the
Holocaust, but THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE...
Posted
April 23, 2017
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GOING
IN STYLE (PG-13) 1/2
Grumpy
old heist men
GOING IN STYLE is
cinematic comfort food: It's simply prepared, has nostalgic and
sentimental value, tastes relatively good and goes down without much fuss. The film has
multiple identities - it's a remake, a grumpy old men comedy of errors,
and a bank heist film. Most
importantly, it's a gathering together of three industry thespian
heavyweight titans of the movies in Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and
Alan Arkin...
Posted
April 16, 2017
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CHIPS
(R)
Someone
should write the makers a ticket
CHIPS is so
infuriatingly awful in so many head spinning ways that I grew angrier just thinking
about them as I endured its 100 minutes.
This is a remake that, as far as I believe, no one really was clamoring
for. More
specifically, it's a remake of
a late 1970's/early 1980's TV series that many filmgoers today arguably haven't
watched, let alone heard of...
Posted
April 16, 2017
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GHOST
IN THE SHELL
(PG-13) 1/2
A
beautiful outer shell of a film that's lacking
soul on the inside
Confession time:
I've never seen the 1995 anime sci-fi film GHOST IN THE SHELL,
which in turn was adapted from the manga series of the same name by Masamune
Shirow. On a positive, I
ventured into the live action adaptation of the anime film with an open
mind and infinitely less baggage than those that worshipped the original.
There's no denying, though, that GHOST IN THE SHELL's influence on
the genre can be felt in innumerable ways...
Posted
April 7, 2017
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POWER
RANGERS (PG-13) 1/2
A
reboot that doesn't mightily morph enough
This film is not
for me. There...I said it. I was bordering
on adulthood when the original children's television super hero program
MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS hit the air in the early 1990's, which meant
that my exposure to it was minimal, to say the least.
It inexplicably became a pop culture phenomenon for young viewers
of its era, inexplicable because the series, let's face it, was ultra
schlocky from a level of its low rent production standards...
Posted
April 7, 2017
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LIFE
(R)
It's
very cold...in spaaaaaace
The new science
fiction horror thriller LIFE is a beyond obvious ALIEN
knock-off, but it's also an exceedingly well oiled, exemplarily crafted, and
reasonably suspenseful ALIEN knockoff that segregates itself far apart
from other genre copycats. Director Daniel
Espinosa (SAFE HOUSE) and writers
Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (DEADPOOL)
are not trying to hide behind the fact that they're appropriating many of
the core elements that made Ridley Scott's 1979 film...
Posted
March 31, 2017
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BEAUTY
AND THE BEAST
(PG) 1/2
Remakes
old as time
When I was
growing up I always considered Disney as a highly rare breed of movie
studio that celebrated and sold its very own unique brand of cinemagic. Lately, though,
they've been certainly guilty of abandoning pioneering creativity and have
instead opted to lazily mine their very own catalogue of classic and iconic animated films in order to turn them into live
action updates...
Posted
March 31, 2017
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BEFORE
I FALL (PG-13)
Diary
of a time looping mean girl
It would be
deceptively easy to label BEFORE I FALL as a one note GROUNDHOG DAY
rip-off. Based on its premise
alone, I can just picture how this young adult drama was pitched to a
studio head: "Imagine the
classic 1993 Bill Murray day looping comedy morphed with MEAN GIRLS, but
done in a vastly more solemn and macabre manner...
Posted
March 31, 2017
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KONG:
SKULL ISLAND
(PG-13) 1/2
There's
only one king of this island
There have been
so many cinematic iterations of KING KONG over the last, well, 80-plus
years that it's quite easy to lose track of them all.
Of course, there was the landmark and pioneering 1933 original
(still the best of the bunch), which was subsequently followed by the
semi-campy, semi-serious 1976 remake, which in turn was followed up by the
visually awe inspiring, but self indulgently long and bloated Peter
Jackson helmed iteration from 2005...
Posted
March 17, 2017
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LOGAN
(R)
No
country for old mutant men
LOGAN is
apparently the last film outing for the adamantium clawed Canadian
anti-hero...at least the version played by Hugh Jackman, who has inhabited the iconic
Marvel Comics character on the silver screen for nearly 20 years. If this third
WOLVERINE film is indeed the swan song for the Australian actor, then we
perhaps could not have asked for a better one...
Posted
March 11, 2017
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MONSTER
TRUCKS (PG)
These
4X4s are definitely not diesel powered
Well, I'm
certainly in no position to label MONSTER TRUCKS as an unoriginal
film. There's has most
definitely not been another family film about centuries old subterranean
water dwelling creatures that are installed in trucks as an alternative
power source that I can recall, which does, yes, make MONSTER TRUCKS one
of a kind. On a level of
chuckle inducing ingenuity, the film has a B-grade premise that's actually quite
nifty...
Posted
March 11, 2017
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GET
OUT (R)
Meet
the parents
A friend of mine
asked me the other day to describe GET OUT, to which I very specifically
replied that it's like GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER morphed with a
nightmarish episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE further merged with THE
STEPFORD WIVES. Make sense? It's an
unforgettably weird horror/thriller/comedy from writer/director Jordan
Peele...
Posted
March 3, 2017
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FIST
FIGHT (R) 1/2
I
wonder what this movie's about?
This film most
certainly is not engaging in false advertising of any kind whatsoever. It does indeed
feature a fight involving fists (and other objects capable of inflicting
pain). On those levels, the
very specifically titled FIST FIGHT delivers on its promises...
Posted
February 26, 2017
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THE
GREAT WALL
(PG-13) 1/2
Chinese
History - LORD OF THE RINGS and Matt Damon-ified
I have a history
degree, and as far back as I can remember to my university days I learned
nothing about giant man-eating iguana creatures attacking the Great Wall of
China hundreds of years ago.
I even consulted Wikipedia just to be
sure...nope.
Now, of course I
kid, because THE GREAT WALL is not trying to pass itself off as a
historical epic about its famous titular structure...
Posted
February 26, 2017
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JOHN
WICK: CHAPTER 2
(R)
Whoa!
"Your
descent into hell begins here, Mr. Wick."
When Keanu Reeves'
unstoppably lethal hitman is told this late in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2...it
feels like both a literal and figurative statement. This is, of
course, the sequel to the improbably and surprisingly astounding JOHN
WICK, the 2014 introductory installment that emerged as not only
one of the most finely attuned action films of the current decade, but also was
one of the best films of its year...period...
Posted
February 21, 2017
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THE
LEGO BATMAN MOVIE
(PG) 1/2
The
plastic bricked Dark Knight Returns
One thing dawned
on me while watching - to quote its ultra specific title - THE LEGO BATMAN
MOVIE. There have been
so very few comedic portrayals of DC Comics' most popular and
iconic character. With the
exception of the joyously campy 1960's TV series, there are not many
incarnations of the Caped Crusader that tapped into our collective funny
bones...
Posted
February 21, 2017
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THE
SPACE BETWEEN US
(PG-13)
A
sci-fi romance that's lost in space
THE SPACE BETWEEN
US is a new sci-fi romance that's proof positive that an incredibly nifty
premise can utterly implode on itself with shoddy and prosaic scripting
that hurtles towards one ludicrous narrative contrivance after another. The film's
central arc is stellar, which concerns a teenager that was born and has
been raised on Mars when his Earth mother astronaut gave birth to him on
the red planet...
Posted
February 13, 2017
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JACKIE
(R) 1/2
A
portrait of a famous first lady buried under
enigmatic layers
The best aspect
of JACKIE is that it's not an obligatory biography of one of the most
famous First Ladies in American history in Jacqueline Kennedy, the wife of
the 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy. More
compellingly, the film is largely about the short period involving her
post JFK assassination life from November 22, 1963 and how she desperately
tried to cope with not only the loss of her husband...
Posted
February 13, 2017
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MANCHESTER
BY THE SEA
(R) 1/2
A
sobering story of death, grief, and obligations
Kenneth
Lonergan's MANCHESTER BY THE SEA is a devastatingly sad, yet darkly comic
portrait of working class family grief after dealing with personal
tragedy. It's
also about a man so broken down by life and his past that he feels very
little impetus to meaningfully and intimately latch onto anything in the
present. This self-destructive and unhealthily depressed loner has his
life upended when his older brother passes away, leaving him to face the
challenge of becoming his teenage nephew's new guardian...
Posted
January
31, 2017
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SPLIT
(R)
Shyamalan's
multiple motives makes for a confused thriller
My
patience in waiting for a "return to form" for director M. Night
Shyamalan has all but eroded. After
bursting onto the scene in the late 90's with his multiple Oscar nominated THE SIXTH
SENSE and following up that lauded effort with 2000's UNBREAKABLE and
2002's SIGNS I was quite sure that he was going to be the next Steven
Spielberg. I
really, really did...
Posted
January
30, 2017
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xXx:
RETURN OF XANDER CAGE
(PG-13)
A
long dormant action franchise that should have
stayed dormant
A few days ago I
asked my friend Steve if he wanted to see the sequel to the 2002's Vin Diesel
action film xXx, to which he very astutely retorted, "Ummmm...that
film already had a sequel...xXx:
STATE OF THE UNION...and wasn't that with Ice Cube instead of
Diesel?"
An awkward
silence ensued, and then I fully realized the error of my ways.
Yes, there already was a sequel to the first xXx...
Posted
January
30, 2017
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