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Not-So-Grand ‘Canyons’: Lindsay’s Latest Debacle
Is The Canyons worth a review? Probably not. But here’s one anyway. The Canyons never exactly got a fair shake as a film, though it’s debatable that it ever deserved one. There’s a certain level of...
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‘Short’& Sweet: Two Talented Filmmakers On The Rise
General audiences tend to hear about the year’s best indies in fall or winter, if they hear of them at all. These films’ releases aren’t quite as calculated as the major Oscar contenders, which tend to...
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In Too Deep: Girls Gone Wild In ‘Lovelace’&‘Spring Breakers’
Ah, porn. The redheaded stepchild of cinema proper. Hollywood has a fascination with the stuff, even if not a whole lot of movies explore the industry in depth. The most famous is, of course, Boogie...
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Spectacular ‘Spectacular’: Not Another Teen Movie
Teen movies tend to fall into different camps, just like teenagers in teen movies. The nerds, the jocks, the princesses, the outcasts — there’s a cinematic equivalent to each, which is why Can’t...
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‘Breaking Bad’ Series Finale: “Felina”
“I did it for me. I liked it.” And so it ends. Can I now safely say that Breaking Bad was the best TV drama there ever was? Not without watching a whole lot of other TV dramas I haven’t caught up with...
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‘Captain’ Jacked: Greengrass Returns To The Docu-Thriller
Back in 2006, I had to make one of the toughest calls I’ve grappled with on a Top 10 List. (My life is really hard, okay?) Would my #1 film of the year be Paul Greengrass’ gripping, devastating...
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Solomon Chained: McQueen Unleashes A Mighty ‘Slave’
Sometimes, you feel like a movie is just speaking directly to you. I saw Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave last night, and I could so identify with the protagonist Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) —...
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‘Tomorrow’ Bland: It’s A Small Film After All
And then this happened. My last review was Twelve Years A Slave, a movie that could very well top my year-end “Best Of 2013″ list, a movie that could very well win Best Picture at the Academy Awards...
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‘Buyers’ Remorse: AIDS Returns To The Academy Awards
If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want a glass of milk. And if you give a major movie star AIDS, he’ll probably want an Oscar. So it goes. The year 2013 is shaping up to be a year of Very...
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Lone Survivors: The Stubborn Old Men Of ‘Nebraska’&‘All Is Lost’
Some movies are tougher sells than others. Certain films are almost willfully difficult to sell. How about a nice uplifting movie called All Is Lost, which features exactly three instances of dialogue...
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All By Myself: Another ‘Lone Survivor’ Hits The Big Screen
If there’s a theme at the movies for 2013, it’s survival. Sure, lots and lots of movies are about survival — like, almost all of them. The biggest movies at the box office tend to be about the survival...
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Broke Folk In New York: ‘Frances Ha’&‘Llewyn Davis’
How’s this for irony? A film about an unappreciated artist made by some of the most praised filmmakers in the world. To many, the Coen brothers are gods of cinema, peerless in American cinema. They...
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Russell Does The ‘Hustle’: An All-American Ode To Bullshit
Hey, Academy, are you paying attention? But of course you are! Here’s a movie featuring a whole bunch of last year’s Oscar nominees, including several past Oscar winners, made by a guy who’s made two...
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Catching Heat: The Warmest Women Of 2013
(Films discussed in this post: Blue Is The Warmest Color, The Heat, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Drinking Buddies, Enough Said, The Invisible Woman.)Women are so hot right now. Again. Or… still. No...
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Away From ‘Her’: The Ultimate Long-Distance Relationship
Her is a rather unusual film, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s seen Spike Jonze’s other movies (or his music videos). He’s collaborated with Charlie Kaufman a couple of times, first on the...
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Screen Full Of Sugar: Disney’s Accidentally Meta ‘Mr. Banks’
Why is P.L. Travers such a bitch? That’s the question central to Saving Mr. Banks, and it’s up to Walt Disney, of all people, to solve the mystery. Movies like this one can be challenging, because the...
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Big Good ‘Wolf’: Scorsese’s Latest Is Excessive To The Max
Is Leonardo DiCaprio this generation’s Robert DeNiro? Yes — at least in the sense that he’s Martin Scorsese’s current muse, and yes in the sense that the movies he stars in tend to have some very hefty...
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A Divorce: Farhadi Repeats Himself In ‘The Past’
A quarreling couple. A troublesome pregnancy. A deceitful employee. A daughter who knows more than she lets on. If this all sounds familiar, you probably saw A Separation, the 2011 Academy Award winner...
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Orphan Is The New Bad: The Best Fucking TV Of 2013
And now it’s time to talk TV. I don’t watch a whole lot of TV, compared to the average American. The number of reality shows I watch regularly — or ever, unless I’m a captive audience — is zero. (Yes,...
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‘August’ Of Wind: Pot Smoking, Pill Popping & A Lot Of Bluster
It’s hot in Osage County in the summertime — likely because of all the star wattage you’ll find there. Let’s take a tour. Here we have the Oscar Queen, Meryl Streep, peerless amongst all actresses who...
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