The perfect distillation of the movie “Arrival,” as well as that of the last year in politics, happened when I watched the film and the closing credits rolled. Just as the film ended, someone several rows behind me started cheering and applauding while another person sitting in close proximity to them began booing. Then everyone […]
Old Mill Stadium 16 & IMAX
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Brief Glimpses
It’s everything or nothing with “Certain Women”
Viewers who aren’t trained in the art of arthouse (or the films of writer-director-editor Kelly Reichardt) might complain that “nothing happens” throughout the running time of “Certain Women.” Indeed, most of the incidents in these three cinematic poems are mostly internal. The moments of drama aren’t sweeping, but instead barely registered moments of pain, heartbreak […]
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Built to Spill
“Deepwater Horizon” is a nail-biting thriller
“Deepwater Horizon” should not be as good as it is. There’s something inherently offensive about turning a true story in which 11 people lost their lives into an action thriller/disaster picture. That’s akin to making a film about the Boston marathon bombing and shooting it like a film noir/detective thriller focused on the hunt for […]
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Western Ronin
“The Magnificent Seven” is ridin’ dirty
“The Magnificent Seven” is exactly what you get from the trailers, but with a little more and a little less. The main thing that makes the whole creaky enterprise work is getting a few likable actors together and hooting and hollering as they shoot their way around a hundred mustache-twirling villains. You’ve seen this movie […]
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Hold the Camera Still!
“Blair Witch” brings more of the same
“The Blair Witch Project” doesn’t work anymore. I saw the movie opening night in 1999 and the slowly building tension, ambiguous horror and abruptly-unnerving ending worked perfectly on my 19-year-old brain. The film kept me up late into the night as I kept hearing what I thought was cackling outside in the fields surrounding my […]
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Somebody’s Watchin’ Me
High stakes have never felt so low in “Snowden”
Sitting down to an Oliver Stone movie is always an exciting proposition. Whether you think he is a master provocateur and filmmaker or just a blowhard, there is no denying that he is capable of creating quite a reaction. In case you’re not familiar with the man, lets take a quick look at some of […]
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Land of the Free, Home of the Blame
“Sully” has all the wrong agendas
In many ways, Clint Eastwood’s “Sully” is the polar opposite of his 2014 smash hit, “American Sniper.” The story of Chesley Sullenberger’s water landing in the Hudson River didn’t carry much controversy in the press, and most mainstream media outlets posited him as a hero who saved the lives of the 155 people in his […]
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The “I’m Disappointed in Myself” Room
The cinematic equivalent of a reheated omelette
There were a few different choices for the two movies I was going to review this week. I knew one of them would be “Sully” because it would have the most cultural relevance, but for the second film I could have gone with “Little Men,” “The Wild Life,” “When the Bough Breaks” or “The Disappointments […]
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The September Doldrums
“Morgan” is the most mixed of bags
September is always a weird month for movies. We’re just exiting out of the May-July Summer Blockbuster season, but we’re still not into the November-December Oscar Bait showcase. Basically, we’re in limbo. Anything could happen over the next few months. While there are a few interesting movies coming out in September and October (“Snowden,” “Voyage […]
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Clutch Them Pearls Fast
“The Light Between Oceans” is weightless melodrama
Before we get into the review proper, I thought I would state the obvious. All criticism is subjective. Just because I think one of the best films of the year so far is a flick about a sausage trying to have sex, find God and dose humanity with bath salts doesn’t mean everyone else will […]