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"Showman" an Empty Spectacle
"Showman" an Empty Spectacle Director Cecil B. DeMille, amassed a fortune, entertained millions and skewed their perception history with his historical epics. With King of Kings, The Plainsman, The...
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“All the Money” Worth All the Trouble
“All the Money” Worth All the Trouble The notion in public relations is that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. That certainly has been disproven this year what with the many accusations of...
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Compelling "Molly’s Game" Seems Incomplete
Compelling "Molly’s Game" Seems Incomplete More martyr than manipulator, Molly Bloom comes off as a fall gal for the rich and famous in Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut Molly’s Game, a true-life tale...
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Ponderous "Last Key" Crawls Towards Scares
Ponderous "Last Key" Crawls Towards Scares Defying the notion that crisp pacing is essential to the success of any movie, particularly a horror film, Insidious: The Last Key meanders along without a...
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Robbie Skates for Gold in “I, Tonya”
Robbie Skates for Gold in “I, Tonya” The saga of Tonya Harding was reality television before the term even existed. As a college student, I remember turning on the news each night as the attack of her...
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Runner Goes Nowhere Fast with Cure
Runner Goes Nowhere Fast with Cure While the film adaptations of The Hunger Games took full advantage of the dystopian adventure craze that swept through the youth literature sector, the...
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Nonsensical "Paradox" a "Cloverfield" Reject
Nonsensical "Paradox" a "Cloverfield" Reject A funny thing happened amidst the hoopla that was Super Bowl LII. Netflix ran the first trailer for The Cloverfield Paradox, the next entry in J.J. Abrams...
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“15:17” a Well-Intended Misfire
“15:17” a Well-Intended Misfire If good intentions were all that were needed to craft a successful motion picture, Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris, would be one of the finest films in the...
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Tantalizing "Annihilation" Fails to Come Together
Tantalizing "Annihilation" Fails to Come Together With two films under his belt, it’s obvious that director Alex Garland has a keen eye, is able to create a slowly developing sense of doom and is eager...
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Intense Foy Salvages “Unsane”
Intense Foy Salvages “Unsane” Steven Soderbergh is our most restless director. He’s done all-star epics (Ocean’s 11), socially relevant dramas (Traffic), Oscar-winning features (“Erin Brockovich),...
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Ponderous Tone, Pace Sinks "Chappaquiddick"
Ponderous Tone, Pace Sinks "Chappaquiddick" John Cullen’s Chappaquiddick is a film that’s long overdue. This recounting of the tragic death of Mary Jo Kopechne and Senator Ted Kennedy’s involvement in...
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Hamm, Script Drive “Beirut”
Hamm, Script Drive “Beirut” I missed out on the whole Mad Men thing (Yes, I know, shame on me; its on the massive list of things I should watch), so I was unprepared for everything that is Jon Hamm....
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Schumer and Bryant Define “Pretty”
Schumer and Bryant Define “Pretty” Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein’s I Feel Pretty couldn’t be more timely. Dealing with the issues of body shaming and low self-esteem, both perpetuated by the...
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"Infinity War" Rights Itself After Awkward Start
"Infinity War" Rights Itself After Awkward Start Let’s be honest, directors Anthony and Joe Russo as well as producer Kevin Feige have painted themselves into a corner where Avengers: Infinity War is...
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"8" a Dim Echo of "11"
"8" a Dim Echo of "11" 8 a Dim Echo of 11One of the reasons Stephen Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 was such a success is that it contains am effortless sense of cool from a bygone era. Perfectly cast,...
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“RBG” A Revelatory Work of the Modern Icon
“RBG” A Revelatory Work of the Modern Icon “Witch” – “Evildoer”- “Monster” – “Disgrace”- “Vile Human Being” – “Anti-American”All of these words are heard describing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader...
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"Uncle Drew" Hits More Shots Than it Misses
"Uncle Drew" Hits More Shots Than it Misses Some films have no purpose other than to entertain. There’s no intent to make a grand political or social statement, the whole goal is to put smiles on...
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Touching “Neighbor” a Vital Reminder
Touching “Neighbor” a Vital Reminder After seeing Morgan Neville’s wonderful new documentary about children’s television host Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, I was left with a great many...
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Riley’s “Sorry” an Audacious Look at Race
Riley’s “Sorry” an Audacious Look at Race Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You has been compared to last year’s lighting rod examination of modern race, Jordan Peele’s Get Out and it’s easy to see why....
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Nature vs. Nurture in Haunting Strangers
Nature vs. Nurture in Haunting Strangers It was Mark Twain who pointed out that truth is stranger than fiction and were he alive today, he would point to Tim Wardle’s compelling documentary Three...
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Predictable “Dog Days” a Bland Comfort
Predictable “Dog Days” a Bland Comfort If you haven’t gotten your fill of the Hallmark Channel – and really, could anyone ever sate their craving for the banal – “Dog Days” is for you. Sweet,...
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“The Meg’s” Animated Beast its Undoing
“The Meg’s” Animated Beast its Undoing One sign of a good salesman is the ability to take something old and sell it as something new. If you’re able apply a little bit of razzle dazzle, some...
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“Alpha” A Surprisingly Effective Dog’s Tale
“Alpha” A Surprisingly Effective Dog’s Tale I’ve seen my share of dog-and-his-boy stories and Albert Hughes is worse than some but better than most. Taking place some 20,000 years ago during the last...
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“Happytime” an Embarrassing Display of Immaturity
“Happytime” an Embarrassing Display of Immaturity There’s something very interesting at play in Brian Henson’s The Happytime Murders, which is really more a temper tantrum than a movie. The son of the...
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Gosling, Chazelle Tackle the Neil Armstrong Story with “First Man”
Gosling, Chazelle Tackle the Neil Armstrong Story with “First Man” The piece of advice that actor Ryan Gosling and director Damien Chazelle must be following is, “Make no small plans.” It seems...
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Divided Siblings Drive "Sisters"
Divided Siblings Drive "Sisters" While reports of the death of the western have been exaggerated, there’s no question that the genre has been on life support for some time. For a while it seemed as...
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Newly Restored "Fog" Still Manages to Chill
Newly Restored "Fog" Still Manages to Chill Having shocked the movie world with the success of Halloween in 1978, John Carpenter’s big-screen follow-up was a relatively exorbitant production by...
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Unexpected Depths Drives “Widows”
Unexpected Depths Drives “Widows” After having examined the dehumanizing effects of prison (Hunger), the inescapable quality of sexual addiction (Shame) and the heinous nature of American slavery (12...
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Barry Jenkins Brings Intimacy, Sincerity to “Beale Street”
Barry Jenkins Brings Intimacy, Sincerity to “Beale Street” There’s a calmness about director Barry Jenkins that belies his enthusiastic approach to his work. Upon arriving in the lobby of the...
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Human drama grounds Solo
Human drama grounds Solo Alex Honnold is not like you or me. Sure, the fact that he climbs mountains is one of the obvious things that separate him from the pack, but even within the climbing...
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