Category: The Twenty-First Century
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Mother! [2017] ★★★
Artistic ambition can be a bitch in this day and age. Just try to make a movie that doesn’t sound or look like your typical Hollywood film and the angry dogs will be out to get you. That’s Darren Aronofsky, from “Requiem for a Dream” to “Black Swan”, he delights in stirring controversy. I’ve had…
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Amityville: The Awakening [2017] ★
In a genre that suffers from extreme tiredness, filmmakers like James Wan are still delivering solid scares with such movies as “The Conjuring” and “Insidious”. Not the case with “Amityville: The Awakening”, a dreadful “kind-of-a” sequel to the 1979 movie. Even the actors make fun of the 2005 remake, unaware that the movie they’re in…
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Brad’s Status [2017] ★★★
Ben Stiller was always my go-to-guy when I wanted to laugh myself silly (try “Zoolander”, “Dodgeball” or even “Tropic Thunder”). But in recent years, he has established himself as a drama actor, which has served him well in such films as Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” and the underrated “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”. In “Brad’s…
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The Foreigner [2017] ★★½
A bomb goes off in London. Jackie Chan’s daughter dies in the blast. He wants answers from a British government official (played by Pierce Brosnan), who may or may not know the people behind the terror attack. Brosnan refuses to cooperate (naturally), and all hell breaks loose (naturally). That’s “The Foreigner” in a nutshell, a…
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Gerald’s Game [2017] ★★½
I’ve been spending a lot of time watching Netflix shows. Every now and then they drop a new movie (avoid “Death Note” at all costs), so naturally I was intrigued when Stephen King’s “Gerald’s Game” was up next. This isn’t an easy movie to endure, mainly because the story’s main character Jessie (Carla Gugino) spend…
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Blade Runner 2049 [2017] ★★★½
Other Sci-Fi filmmakers will have to work hard to match the brilliance of Denis Villeneuve’s masterful “Blade Runner 2049”, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult classic. What? A sequel that doesn’t suck? You heard it. The original had Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a blade runner who hunts for fugitive, murderous replicants. Having vanished…
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Stronger [2017] ★★★½
“Stronger” may be a Hollywood product, but it is absolutely real, and certainly one of the year’s finest films. It’s also a perfect showcase for Jake Gyllenhaal, who delivers one of the best performances of his career, playing Jeff Bauman, a 28 year-old Boston man who lost both his legs in the 2013 Boston marathon…
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Flatliners [2017] ★
It’s the end of the summer, a time where some studios start preparing for Oscar season, while others dump their summer leftovers. Case in point: “Flatliners”, a truly awful thriller (if we can call it that), that ranks among the worst films of the year. A remake of a 1990 movie directed by Joel Schumacher,…
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Home Again [2017] ★★
I love Reese Witherspoon and I have no problem whatsoever with a chick flick written and directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer (daughter of Nancy Meyers), but even they can’t save “Home Again” from being strictly generic. Many times, you can feel Meyers channeling her mother, but the overall result is just too predictable and shallow. Witherspoon…
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The LEGO Ninjago Movie [2017] ★★½
It’s not “The LEGO Batman Movie”, but “Ninjago” has enough charm and memorable characters to justify its own feature film. Justin Theroux may have found the role of his career, voicing the evil Garmadon, an ego-centric villain who may remind you of a certain Darth Vader. His plan? To take over the city of Ninjago.…
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Kingsman: The Golden Circle [2017] ★★★
Sequels to successful movies are usually tricky business, but I had a total blast watching “Kingsman: The Golden Circle”. Yes, the element of surprise is gone and there isn’t much to discover here. The good news, however, is that director Matthew Vaughn hasn’t lost his love for inspired lunacy. Hanging with Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and…
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The Nile Hilton Incident [2017] ★★★
A police officer in Cairo talking and investigating a murder like a character out of a 1940’s film noir starring Humphrey Bogart. It’s a daring move, but a damn good one, so it should be on your list of movies to see before the year is over. A spoof would have been enough for writer/director…
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My Cousin Rachel [2017] ★★★
As we needed further proof of her exceptional talent, Rachel Weisz delivers a mesmerizing performance as the title character, a woman who could be innocent or an evil seductress with murderous thoughts. Working from a novel by Daphne Du Maurier (who also wrote Hitchcock’s Oscar winner “Rebecca”), director Roger Michell explores the possibilities of both…
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![The Insult [2017] ★★★½](https://tlkabtmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/20638103_1186331088138702_5460941636943281305_n.jpg?w=960)
The Insult [2017] ★★★½
Lebanese filmmaker Ziad Doueiri needs no introduction, having directed a series of successful films over the years. While “West Beirut” will forever remain my favorite movie, his latest effort, “The Insult”, further confirms his skill as a talented storyteller. In short: it’s one of the most intense Lebanese movies I’ve ever seen. What makes “The…
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IT [2017] ★★★
Movies based on Stephen King’s novels tend to range from terrific (“The Shawshank Redemption”) to just plain awful (“Cell”), but being one of his scariest and most popular stories, I approached “It” with high expectations. Filmmaker Tommy Lee Wallace had already adapted the story into a mini-series back in 1990, but the new film never…
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Death Note [2017] ★
If you thought “Dragonball Evolution” wasn’t bad enough, wait till you get a load of “Death Note”, Netflix’s very own disaster. Based on a popular Japanese manga series, this live-action version gets almost everything wrong, despite an intriguing premise. Nat Wolff seems clueless as Light Turner, a high-school kid who finds a mysterious notebook that…
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Logan Lucky [2017] ★★½
Critics have been praising director Steven Soderbergh’s comeback movie (he retired 4 years ago after “Side Effects”), and there’s no denying that he’s still got it, even though I didn’t fully embrace the overall result. On the plus side, “Logan Lucky” has a well-cast ensemble and gives us Daniel Craig like we’ve never seen him before.…
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47 Meters Down [2017] ★★½
Want to see two sisters fight for their lives while trapped in a shark cage on the ocean floor? “47 Meters Down” is the movie for you. But while this nailbiter isn’t on par with “Jaws” or other movies of the same genre, it gets the job done by delivering an intense ride. Mandy Moore…
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It Comes At Night [2017] ★★★
If you’ve seen Joel Edgerton in “Warrior” and “The Gift”, you probably know he’s an actor who means business. In “It Comes At Night”, an indie horror film that distances itself from the multiplex formula, Edgerton sinks his teeth into the complex role of a family man who keeps his family secure within a safe…
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