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Film Review

It Isn’t

by Ann Morrow February 20, 2013

Where is Jeb Stuart when you need him? Because renegade cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) sure could’ve used a good screenwriter for his fifth time getting caught in a very bad situation while not in ...

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For Better or For Worse

by Shawn Stone February 13, 2013

This wrenching drama about an elderly couple facing illness, physical/mental decline, and, eventually, death, is bracing, heartwarming, alienating and thoroughly unsettling. It’s up for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, which ...

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Misdiagnosis

by Ann Morrow February 13, 2013

Malingering comes into play in Steven Soderbergh’s latest—and reportedly last—major motion picture. Medical jargon for faking illness or disability for financial or other gain, it is perhaps appropriate, since Soderbergh has not been a major ...

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Road to Ruin

by Laura Leon February 13, 2013

If the sight of a fat woman masturbating with a Waterpik or being spanked mid-coitus by a beefy cowboy-boots-wearing salesman sounds like your idea of classic comedy, Identify Theft is the film for you. If, ...

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Romeo and Juliet and Zombies

by Laura Leon February 6, 2013

Fans of The Walking Dead may criticize Warm Bodies for its light take on gore and mayhem, but they should appreciate that the movie, directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50) and based on the book by ...

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Tired Old Men

by Shawn Stone February 6, 2013

This character drama about three gangsters in their twilight years relies way too much on the three leads’ star power (and resumes) to get by with audiences. The plot is relatively straightforward, but the tonal ...

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A Professional Job

by Shawn Stone January 31, 2013

This smart, businesslike crime drama stars Jason Statham as Parker, a no-nonsense criminal with questionable morals but a strict code of ethics. When he’s double-crossed after a robbery by his partners (led by a reliably ...

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Muted

by Ann Morrow January 31, 2013

Adapted from his stage play by Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood, Quartet should have been better than it is. And because its topic is so appealingly offbeat, audiences may enjoy it more than it deserves. Set ...

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Fractured Fairy Tale

by Laura Leon January 31, 2013

Milking the cinematic gravy train that has become adult takes on Disneyfied fairy tales, Tommy Wirkola reboots the story of two abandoned children taken prisoner by a nearsighted witch with a penchant for tyke meat. ...

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Fragments of Intrigue

by Laura Leon January 23, 2013

With knowing, if at times pandering, nods to film noirs like The Big Sleep, Broken City offers up much in terms of atmosphere and characters, if not gripping narrative. Mark Wahlberg plays Billy Taggart, a ...

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Thrill of the Hunt

by Ann Morrow January 16, 2013

Regardless of her Best Director snub by the Academy Award voters, Kathryn Bigelow has delivered one of the best directed movies of the year, on a very difficult topic: the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin ...

L.A. Inconsequential

by Laura Leon January 16, 2013

It’s got the fashion and neon flash of 1949 Los Angeles, but Gangster Squad, a movie about the LAPD’s attempt to destroy Mickey Cohen’s attempt to take over the mob, is an empty zoot suit. ...

Shale Game

by Ann Morrow January 10, 2013

The dialogue is so spot-on in Promised Land—Hollywood’s dramatization of the fracking debate—that it’s no surprise that the story and first draft are by star writer Dave Eggers. And as delivered by Matt Damon as ...

Still Life

by Laura Leon January 10, 2013

While the critics immediately began positing Daniel Day-Lewis’ formidable performance in Lincoln for an Oscar, much less has been made of Bill Murray’s turn as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson. And that’s ...

Unendurable

by Shawn Stone January 10, 2013

The 2004 tsunami that devastated South Asia and the East Indies has surfaced occasionally on the big screen—remember Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter?—but The Impossible, the story of one family’s terrible, terrifying true experience, takes audiences into ...