Steven Spielberg’s newest holiday Oscar-bait project, Lincoln, suffers under the burden of its own ambitious pretensions, for what it offers up in the acting department is often sabotaged by jagged pacing, uneven story-telling, and a redundant message.
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Alex Cross is a bad movie that aspires to be a mediocre movie, only to fail even at that modest goal — in spectacular fashion.
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I’m all for implausible and efficient action movies, especially when they’re big and ridiculous and having fun. But there’s nothing to Taken 2, which is downbeat and deadly serious—except for one memorable car chase in the middle of the film.
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An internalized, meditative journey through maybe the darkest, most terrifying moment in any person’s life, Miller pieces his movie together by absorbing Shannon’s performance via a series of long, mostly-silent takes.
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Ben Wheatley’s overlooked movie ‘Down Terrace’ is basically a surprisingly funny mumblecore movie with a focus on guns and murders instead of self-indulgent whining and indie-pop music. The film feels real without ever feeling boring, or sacrificing the hardness of the story for mushy feelings.
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For Good or Ill, ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ is Guy Ritchie at his Guy Ritchie-est.
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‘My Week With Marilyn’ is a frustrating lark of a film anchored by an impressive performance from Michelle Williams.
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Movie review of “50/50,” where Seth Rogen plays the best friend of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
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I have a simple rule of thumb when it comes to discussing and analyzing movies about cancer. Does the film work, is it compelling, if you replace cancer with something else? If the characters still hold your interest, and the situations they find themselves in move us more deeply into the story without the big […]
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Fantastic Fest 2011 is under way, and contributor George Hickman is filing his reports each day as the festival and its movie events continue. Here are a couple condensed-reviews of new films at Fantastic Fest this year. We Need to Talk About Kevin (solid rock fist up) “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is the […]
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Fantastic Fest 2011 is under way, and contributor George Hickman is filing his reports each day as the festival and its movie events continue. Here are a couple condensed-reviews of new films at Fantastic Fest this year. Headhunters (rock fist way up) The Norwegian crime comedy “Headhunters,” based on a bestselling novel, tells the story […]
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The Human Centipede 2 Full Sequence movie review from Fantastic Fest 2011
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Coming of age stories often come in two forms. Some explore the expansion and depth of a life just begun. Films like “My Life as a Dog” follow young adolescents as they blossom into a proto-sexual adulthood. The other type of coming of age story deals with the fleeting nature of life. In films like […]
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“Drive” is probably gonna piss off a lot of casual movie-goers.
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With most films about sickness or contamination, the virus is employed as a socio-political metaphor either for other more emotionally charged illnesses such as HIV or for the fear and distrust surrounding cultural, ethnic or racial lines. In his new film “Contagion,” director Steven Soderbergh understands that a global epidemic is scary enough on its […]
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