Category: The Twenty-First Century
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A Cure For Wellness [2017] ★★½
I approach every psychological movie with a combination of excitement and apprehension, and “A Cure for Wellness” is no exception: it’s a visual feast, courtesy of director Gore Verbinsky, featuring a superior performance from its leading man, Dane DeHaan. How to describe the story? I’d say it’s a cross between Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” and…
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Going In Style [2017] ★★½
It’s not groundbreaking, it has a good amount of “old people” jokes, but it’s also fun to watch. That’s “Going in Style” in a nutshell. Director Zach Braff has never worked with legendary actors before, but I think he’s done a good job, turning this predictable heist movie into a real crowd-pleaser. You can probably connect…
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Max Steel [2016] ★
A flop in the United States and one of the worst reviewed movies of 2016, “Max Steel” is living proof that some Superheroes are worse than worthless. It not only scrapes the bottom of the superhero barrel; it bores its audience to death with a dull plot, a stupid hero, and a ridiculous villain, played…
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The Salesman [2016] ★★★½
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman” deservedly won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language movie. When I saw it last night, I had to stay in my seat for several minutes afterwards to take it all in. This is a rollercoaster of emotions that builds slowly and deliberately, leading up to an unforgettable climax. Part…
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Get Out [2017] ★★★
It came out of nowhere. First time director Jordan Peele, working with a tight budget (around $5 million), has managed to craft one of the year’s most profitable horror/slasher/comedy/satirical movies ($149 million at last count). So what’s all the fuss about? On the surface, it sounds like a mix between “Guess who’s coming to dinner”…
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CHIPS [2017] ★★½
You don’t walk in to see a buddy cop movie starring Dax Shepard and Michael Peña with high expectations. Personally, I don’t ask a lot from a raunchy comedy: I want it to entertain me and “CHIPS” does exactly that. The ultimate joke of the movie is that two officers from different backgrounds team up to bring…
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Life [2017] ★★
Although it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, “Life” has an intriguing science-fiction premise and just the right actors to carry it through. So what could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out. Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds and a group of astronauts find a life form on Mars that could provide enough evidence for extraterrestrial life. But is…
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Power Rangers [2017] ★½
It’s pointless to try and figure out why this version of “Power Rangers” was made. The movie only exists because of Hollywood’s need to reboot pretty much every popular show/movie ever made. So how to describe my reaction? I’m not angry. Indifferent, perhaps. But not angry. I walked in with no particular expectations and walked…
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The Belko Experiment [2017] ★★
It’s gory as hell, but the idea at the core of “The Belko Experiment” got my attention: a group of 80 Americans are locked in their offices in Bogota, Colombia and ordered by an unknown voice to kill 30 people in two hours. What happens if they don’t? They all die. Simple. Straight to the point. No…
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Beauty And The Beast [2017] ★★½
“Beauty and the Beast” is one of my favorite Disney animated movies, so naturally, I wanted the live action version to be as enchanting. First the good news: the film is beautiful to look at and well cast. Emma Watson needs no introduction, and she effortlessly becomes Belle, the young woman who finds herself taken…
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Paterson [2016] ★★½
To say that writer/director Jim Jarmusch makes unusual movies would be the understatement of the year. Sometimes, the result is unforgettable, as in “Stranger than Paradise”. Sometimes, you just want to turn the damn thing off, as in “Only Lovers Left Alive” (sue me). “Paterson” falls somewhere in between: it’s a quiet, intriguing look at…
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Nocturnal Animals [2016] ★★★
I’m ashamed to say that I’m a bit late coming to this movie, but having witnessed Amy Adams in one of the best performances of her career in Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece “Arrival”, I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into “Nocturnal Animals”. And I wasn’t wrong: this is a scary, stylish, and terrifically twisted film…
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Kong: Skull Island [2017] ★★★
Behold: One of the oldest and most iconic monsters in film history returns to the big screen. Kong has come a long way since he starred in the 1933 classic movie that spawned many spinoffs and reboots (the last of them being Peter Jackson’s majestic 2005 “King Kong”). “Skull Island” was produced by the same…
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Before I Fall [2017] ★★
In this teen flick based on Lauren Oliver’s bestselling book, Zoey Deutch plays a young woman who wakes up every morning to discover that she is reliving Groundhog Day all over again. I’m kidding, of course, but no one can deny the similarities between the two films, which is why it’s so easy to dismiss “Before I…
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Logan [2017] ★★★½
Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Logan is everything you would want from a Wolverine movie: violent, compelling and incredibly entertaining. And yet it seemed too good to be true: the previous two Wolverine adventures were fun, but they lacked soul. Which is why writer-director James Mangold (“Walk The Line”, 3:10 To Yuma”) had to spice…
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A Dog’s Purpose [2017] ★★
The greatest trick “A Dog’s Purpose” tried to pull was convincing its audience that “no animals were harmed during the making of this film”. Prior to the film’s release, a video emerged online, showing a German Shepherd being forced into a water tank to shoot a scene. I tried to ignore this incident as I…
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T2 Trainspotting [2017] ★★★
It took writer John Hodge and director Danny Boyle 20 years to cook up a sequel to “Trainspotting”, one of the most talked about movies of the 90’s and a cult classic. Ewan McGregor, Johnny Lee Miller and Ewen Bremmer were in their mid-20’s when the first film was released. Now they’re all back in “T2”,…
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Hidden Figures [2016] ★★★
I don’t pretend to understand everything about “Hidden Figures”, about three brilliant women who worked for NASA in the early 1960’s, but instead of being put off, I found myself intrigued, even wanting to know more about the work they did following the events of this film. Taraji P. Henson is perfectly cast as a mathematical genius…
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Dalida [2016] ★★★
I can’t remember a time when my mom didn’t play Dalida records in our house. As far as I knew, Dalida has enjoyed enormous popularity all around the world, largely because of hit songs like “Laissez-Moi Danser”, “Helwa Ya Baladi”, “Salma Ya Salama” and many more. But what I didn’t know is that off stage,…
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