Pretty in Pink (1986)
Doesn’t quite have the charm of the other Hughes 80’s movies. Features all the stock characters from the 80’s: a conflicted male lead, the annoying and overstylish friend, a third dark and borderline creepy supporting male, a cute but quirky female lead, her cool girlfriend, and the cool girlfriend’s stupid…
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Cliffhanger (1993)
Decent story, pretty good execution by Harlin. Nice stunts and pretty good camerawork. Not for the acrophobic. Turner was kinda cute. Would have preferred to see someone like Robert Forster in the role of Frank. Waite was a little too dopey and smiley. Hints of the Last of the Mohicans…
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The Cable Guy (1996)
A horror-comedy? Great cast, with many who would go on to be stars. One of the early collaborations between Stiller, Wilson, and Mann. Carrey’s the outsider in this crew. Broderick’s a horrible actor. Mann is Meg Ryan-y cute.
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Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Polished, and the action is shot pretty well, but the dramatic score needs drama to match, and it’s just not there. An interesting study of medieval warfare. Was it really like that?
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Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Much in spirit of Clash of Titans, which came much later and was better in all respects. Not much to it. The story and characters are boring. That was one sorry Hercules. Lame action. Effects may have been good for their time, but they’re hard to put up with now.…
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Gus (1976)
Some awkward performances, but it IS comedy. For kids. In the 70’s. Aside from some sweet x-ray animation, pretty awful visual effects.
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The Descendants (2011)
I’m not sure going to see his wife’s lover was the right thing to do under the circumstances, so it’s hard for me to fully support the main characters. But if we dismiss that moral judgement, it’s a thoughtful, comfortably paced movie with good performances, typical of Alexander Payne. Clooney…
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Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
Bad execution of a very mediocre story. A victim of the 70’s. Slow pace, boringly static camera. Average-looking, dopey actors with moppy hair delivering stale, unfunny performances. I’d like to see baseball players sing with each other for fun today. The baseball footage from the period is kind of interesting.
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The Princess Bride (1987)
Good filmmaking. Obvious inspiration for Shrek and Zemeckis’ Beowulf. Elwes and Patinkin are wonderful. Best line in the movie: “Please consider me as an alternative to suicide.”
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Annie Hall (1977)
A simultaneous recognition and criticism of sexual psychoanalysis. Definitely a precursor to neurotic romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally. Allen’s good at his shtick, but his shtick gets old after a while. He may be a genius, but he’s got a line for everything and makes references that most…
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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Probably the best of the series. Bird handles live-action just fine, pulling off a polished movie with good action and effects. Unfortunately, the characters and performances in this one aren’t too memorable. An aging Cruise, funny-looking body and all, still pulls it off. Patton is very nice. I imagine that…
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Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
Early on, the story is all over the place. It should be engaging throughout, not just a set-up for the silly romantic stand-off at the end. Most of the comedy is shallow and weak. Carell, like a lot of great comedians, makes the easy transition to pseudo-drama. I could see…
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Repo Men (2010)
Newbie director Sapochnik delivers a polished and interesting film. Is this where we’re headed? Why is Jude Law so good at playing characters in the future?
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Mobsters (1991)
Just feels so 90’s, with all the proper camera angles, even lighting, and cheesy melodramatic dialogue. Slater is decent, Dempsey is unpolished.
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Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
The story is slightly messy, scenes are slightly predictable, but it’s a pretty good attempt at fusing western and sci-fi. Not an easy thing to do. Craig is cool and engaging, Ford is OK.
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Being There (1979)
Perhaps one of the earliest explorations, or even commentaries, on the effects of television and mass media on people. Aside from that angle, the movie is rather boring. An idiot fools everyone and stumbles his way to national fame, a device used again but in a more fanciful way in…
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The Hurt Locker (2008)
Bigelow makes a boy movie. Wonderful tension in all of the action sequences, though the shaky camera is a bit much at times. Like Three Kings and Green Zone and a lot of Iraq war movies, creative lighting and filters are used to render Iraq the color of parchment. Renner…
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A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008)
A lot of guys have wanted to do something like this. Waitt is deadpan funny and endearing, although sometimes he plays a bit too dumb and some of his scenes are staged. The end, in particular, is scripted and unsatisfyingly fake. Did we need to see his cock so much?…
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King Solomon’s Mines (1985)
Horribly made. Chamberlain’s such a goofball. Stone was lucky to have a career after this. Oh wait, she’s pretty.
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The Sting (1973)
Decent period piece, but a little slow. Most movies from the 70’s were pretty slow. The music is fun, but I’m not really sure it fits. Newman’s pretty cool, and he really does have amazing eyes. Redford was quite athletic, wasn’t he? It’s always interesting watching period pieces from different…
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Auto Focus (2002)
Kinnear is wonderful, but was this a story worth telling? Crane was an interesting guy, but not a very redeeming one.
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Bridesmaids (2011)
The girls all have comic chops, but their ad lib skills are not quite honed. Some scenes are funny but a little forced. Might be the first time I have seen girls use so much toilet humor. Nice little story.
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Predators (2010)
They’re really milking this franchise. Is it really still making money? Brody has a bassy, amplified Christian Bale-as-Batman voice. Did he really need this role? I feel like he’s got a bit more class than this.
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Sniper 2 (2002)
Not much to the story or characters or dialogue. Never really liked Berenger, and Woodbine’s pretty lame.
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The Social Network (2010)
An interesting choice for Fincher. Well-made. The rise of Facebook is cleanly presented for older people who might not understand the phenomenon. Eisenberg helps make an interesting character believable. Loved the ending. Is Zuckerberg really that melancholic in real life?
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Horrible Bosses (2011)
Bateman’s a genius, and Spacey gives it weight, but the script is not that wonderful.
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Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011)
Kind of interesting. Times have changed. Today’s obsessions with fame-seeking and social networking and terrorist-finding make it hard to believe that someone so famous could live so secretly for so long.
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Pollock (2000)
Harris is pretty good, but like Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, it’s not much fun watching an asshole treat people like crap and then die. It may be a biography, but that doesn’t mean it’s a story worth telling.
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Navy Seals (1990)
Kind of a crap movie, but an interesting mix of late 80’s and early 90’s stars.
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Due Date (2010)
What looked like a goofball comedy really caught me by surprise. This road comedy with a happy-go-lucky goofball and a goal-oriented straight man reminded me a lot of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Downey is wonderful as the straight man, with razor sharp dialogue and comic timing. Galifianakis keeps up. Cameos…
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Fantastic origin story, creating a reality which magnificently spawns the larger story. Events of the subsequent films are now motivated and clear. Forcing science fiction to be grounded in reality can be difficult, but doing so can make it truly magical. We’re now wide open for some great sequels. Let’s…
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Die Hard 2 (1990)
They didn’t do a horrible job duplicating the charm and feel of the original, but the story and characters just aren’t as good.
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The Mechanic (2011)
It’s The Professional with a hairy dude instead of a little girl. Statham’s kind of cool, but he doesn’t have much range, does he? He’s the same character in every one of his movies.
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Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003)
Awful in so many ways. Shore, a desperate has-been, is trying his hardest to make a few more bucks. At the same time, the movie is about Shore being a desperate has-been. There’s a strange irony there. An impressive collection of cameos.
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The American (2010)
Polished and simple. A good role for Clooney. He’s good at this sort of thing.
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Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Love how they tied in his comic book uniform. Is that where he came from in the comic mythology? And nice tie-ins with the other movies in the Avengers series. They obviously put a lot of thoughtful planning into these movies. Evans pulls it off. He looks particularly cool when…
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Four Christmases (2008)
A pleasant surprise. There’s some cheap physical comedy, but more than enough great dialogue to make up for it. Vaughn’s a genius. He’s just so quick, perhaps the best ad libber in movies today. Witherspoon’s a good counterpart.
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The Quest (1996)
Some decent fighting sequences, but, predictably, there’s not much to the story.
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The Eiger Sanction (1975)
Kind of silly, but I guess this is adventure in the 70’s. Lots of racial dialogue that wouldn’t fly today. Some great shots that must have been really great in the theater. Must have been kind of a bitch to shoot.
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28 Weeks Later (2007)
Very faithful sequel. Wonderful extension of the story, similar style, and nice tie-ins with the original. Kudos to Fresnadillo. Renner is particularly good. Carlyle is interesting, but his effort to make his loved ones suffer rather than indeterminately trying to eat them implies an intelligence that the zombies aren’t supposed…
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Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002)
Not completely horrible. Dave Sheridan even looks a bit like Jim Carrey. Cameron Richardson’s cute in a Geena Davis sort of way. Lots of nice cameos.
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Every Which Way But Loose (1978)
Crap story. Was the San Fernando Valley really overrun with country folk in the 70’s? How does a truck driver simpleton acquire and take care of an orangutan? Bad dialogue. Almost no comedy. Aside from some mediocre fight scenes, no action. An extremely awkward ending. Even the cheap orangutan cuteness…
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Real Genius (1985)
Typical 80’s cool-cat-takes-uptight-youngster-under-his-wing-in-his-struggle-against-the-man storyline. Kilmer was hot property at this point, but his infantile humor is grating. Meyrink was the original Neve Campbell. I’ve always liked William Atherton. I remember that Weird Science came out at the same time as this one, and I ended up choosing this one. Bad…
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The Jewel of the Nile (1985)
They brought the same actors back, and the characters have the same charm, but the story’s not quite as good.
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Super 8 (2011)
Signs + Cloverfield = Super 8 Small-town father and son struggle to cope with the loss of wife and mother. Tormented father struggles with raising his son on his own. Suddenly, a monster threatens to destroy everything, forcing a deep father-son bond and allowing them both to find peace with…
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The Money Pit (1986)
With impeccable control of his physicality and voice, Hanks is a real comedic talent. Long does her best to keep up. Good characters and a decent story. Love the foundation metaphor at the end.
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Too Big to Fail (2011)
A simplified glimpse at what happened to the US economy in 2008, maybe a bit too simplified. Complicated issues and conversations are reduced to summaries and sound bites. Despite the star power, it was more informational than emotional. It’s more a series of events than anyone’s personal story. I can…
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Showtime (2002)
For big stars in a screwball comedy, it could have been a lot worse. For the first time in years, Murphy is almost himself. Looks like they had a pretty good time making it.
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Rush (1991)
The main characters choose to engage in a line of work that necessitates the use of hard drugs. I’m not surprised nor sympathetic that their lives out of control. Patric is almost cool. Leigh is mediocre as usual.
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I.Q. (1994)
Unsatisfying at its very core since the entire relationship between the two main characters was fabricated from beginning to end. Ryan’s adorable.
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Crossing Delancey (1988)
Strange choices by the main character prevent us from really sympathizing with her and her story. Despite that, relatively good performances by mostly unknowns. It’s amazing that this movie didn’t help any of their careers. The “dum-dum” theme goes from pleasant to annoying quite quickly.
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Funny People (2009)
Quite a surprise. The story has heart, and the dialogue is quite funny. Great cast. Sandler and Rogen and Mann and Bana are all wonderful. All the comedian cameos are appropriate, and amazingly, they’re not a distraction.
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Brüno (2009)
Similar comedy as Borat, maybe a little funnier. A bit too much cock, though. I feel kinda bad for some of his “victims”. I mean, Ron Paul might run for president.
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Thor (2011)
Story’s surprisingly good, well-executed by Branagh. He’s not a guy I’d expect to make a comic book movie. I feel like we could have used a bit more story and one more good action sequence on Earth. Overall, the action and effects are really good, especially on his home planet.…
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Blue Valentine (2010)
Gosling and Williams deliver nervous, uncomfortable performances. And it’s not just the characters that are destabilizing. Disjointed flashbacks of intensely emotional scenes, awkward editing, an ethereally chaotic score, ad libbing add to the mix. It’s obvious that this is what Cianfrance was going for, but that doesn’t mean it’s a…
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Married to the Mob (1988)
Pfeiffer was a fox. Modine is surprisingly horrible. Surprisingly good cast, but pretty silly. One of the worst climactic gunfights ever. Couldn’t they find actors who knew how to hold a gun? What’s with playing useless footage that was cut from the film under the closing credits?
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Domestic Disturbance (2001)
Not bad, a lot like The Stepfather. If Vaughn had knocked out a few more dramatic performances and not put on weight, I think he could have gone on to become a great leading man. Very expressive eyes.
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Blue City (1986)
Nelson is ALMOST a viable leading man. Caruso definitely should have stuck to dopey sidekick roles.
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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
Horrible 80’s cheese from the opening credits to the soundtrack to the acting to the closing credits. A few famous faces, but they’re all wasted. William Petersen is awful. Decent car chase.
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The Town (2010)
Nice story, interesting local setting, polished production. Some really great, Heat-like shootouts, and a great moment with a cop who looks away. Nice performances by a nice cast. This is Affleck is at his coolest, toughest, and least annoying. I’m surprised Affleck directed something this polished. How much help did…
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Sucker Punch (2011)
Kill Bill meets The Matrix meets Annie. These girls really kick ass. A heavily made-up and wonderfully expressive Browning mixes innocence with hopelessness with determination. I’m sure this is exactly the performance Snyder was hoping for. Fantastic action. Really nice effects are mixed with beautiful Baroque/steampunk photography. There’s that unique…
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Max Manus: Man of War (2008)
Interesting story. Well-shot, except for some handheld camera during some of the film’s calmer, emotional moments. Well-casted. These guys look just like their real-life counterparts. Aksel Hennie is Norway’s James Spader.
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TRON: Legacy (2010)
Not a bad extension of the story. I like Hedlund as the lead. He would have been a bit more dramatic if he was a little less cocky, but he does vaguely look and sound like Bridges. Young Bridges’ face is a little smooth and plastic-looking, and the extreme expressions…
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The A-Team (2010)
More about action and plot twists than about plot and character. The actors are faded photocopies of the characters from the original series, with Neeson and Copley barely pulling it off. For Hannibal and Murdock, they really should have gone with American actors who could be more naturally American.
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Up in the Air (2009)
A small, smart, mature, ponderous story. Reitman’s getting better, emplying more dramatic, less quirky storylines. His characters, dialogue, and comedy are still quirky, but it’s a nice balance.
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Precious (2009)
A horrible story. What’s redeeming about this? Sidibe has the same appeal as large-lipped, innocent, and well-meaning Bubba from Forrest Gump. Mo’Nique plays a truly hateful character, but it’s a really good performance.
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Couples Retreat (2009)
A fun little comedy with a fun cast. Great chemistry between some of the most natural comic actors in the business. I think everyone enjoyed making this one.
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True Grit (2010)
Nice performances all around, but Steinfeld was exceptional. Most actors would struggle with dialogue that snappy, but she whipped it out like a pro. Whoever wrote the dialogue really knew the Old West. It’s wonderful.
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Firefox (1982)
Definitely liked it a lot more as a kid. The effects are dated and the drama is weak. It would be many years before Eastwood would learn how to direct.
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Lost in Translation (2003)
Coppola delivers a contemplative, emotional, and truly enjoyable experience. This movie has all of my favorite things: characters who are real and unique and interesting, an emotional story of real growth, long takes and a droning score that really draw you in. The essence of Japan, from its dazzling city…
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It’s Complicated (2009)
Of course it’s complicated when no one has any boundaries. Hard to root for morally questionable main characters, even when it’s supposed to be funny. Had a similar issue with The Bridges of Madison County, which coincidentally featured an equally slutty Meryl Streep. Great cast. Baldwin is a lot of…
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Brown Sugar (2002)
Not bad. The whole “relationship as hip hop” thing seemed a bit forced, but it works. Diggs is always cool.
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The Good Girl (2002)
Nice, offbeat humor. Arteta’s got a talent for subtlety and timing. Probably my favorite, least annoying Aniston performance. Gyllenhall and Reilly Lynch and Nelson are all perfect in supporting roles.
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8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997)
Puns are bad. Pesci milks his persona. But if he’s gonna do that, he has to be funnier, more over the top. He can’t just ride it. Swanson’s hot.
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Black Rain (1989)
Not bad, but quite long, and I’m not sure why. Scott succeeds in creating a Bladerunner-ish set in and around Tokyo and fills it with ceiling fans. Douglas is pretty cool. I’ve always wondered why Garcia never had a real career. He’s got the look. Does he really lack dramatic…
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Stand by Me (1986)
A nice, simple Stephen King story. I remember enjoying it more when I was younger, but it still holds up pretty well. Amazing cast. The kids do a great job, delivering wonderfully written dialogue with ease.
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The King’s Speech (2010)
Firth delivers a courageous performance of an unflattering character. Rush is good, too. But I’m not sure there is enough drama here. The king’s impediment seems almost like an obstacle to the establishment of dramatic relationships between the characters. And if a dramatic wartime speech is the climax of the…
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The Stepfather (2009)
Some of the suspense is a bit forced, but Walsh is nice and creepy.
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The Dilemma (2011)
Not as bad as I expected. Howard’s sense of comedy is pretty basic, but Vaughn’s natural charm and punchy dialogue bring the laughs. The whole “dilemma” is a bit forced, but there are enough dramatic scenes to keep it engaging. Is Winona Ryder on drugs? Her last few performances featured…
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Black Swan (2010)
A little too disturbing. If it played less like a horror film and more like a romance with a slightly healthier protagonist, the story would have been a bit more dramatic and engaging, and Portman could have really taken our breaths away. Nonetheless, Portman delivers an intense and courageous performance.…
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Tyson (2008)
Like This Is It did for Michael Jackson, this movie really makes Tyson out to be a real person, with depth and character and personality, who was simplistically misunderstood in the public eye. Interesting interviews, footage, and editing. Tyson is perhaps one of the first superstars for whom video footage…
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Push (2009)
Pretty good story. Quality performances by a really interesting cast. Belle’s a knock-out. Nice action and effects. There’s a lot of pretty ridiculous stuff going on, but it never looks cheesy.
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I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)
A quality production. Touching and well-acted, with a delicate and appropriate touch of humor from Carrey. A gay Catch Me If You Can.
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Summer Rental (1985)
After decades of evolution, by the 1980’s, American institutions like high school, suburban life, road trips, nightlife, and the military had become regular, common, shared American experiences. Many 80’s movies, particularly light comedies and especially movies by John Hughes, were a slice of this contemporary American life. The light comedies…
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Edge of Darkness (2010)
Nice and graphic and dark and interesting and touching. Gibson’s accent is pretty good.
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I'm a photographer, web developer, travel enthusiast, and movie buff living in Alexandria, Virginia, USA.In the summer of 1993, I started writing reviews for every movie I saw and haven't looked back. I'm up to 2,362 reviews now. This makes me cool or a complete dork, depending on your perspective.
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