Posted in: Review

Stoker

It’d probably be impossible to produce a suspenseful, sensual coming-of-age thriller about the relationship forged between an impressionable, inquisitive teenage girl and her mysterious Uncle Charlie without blatantly calling to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful, somehow-underrated Shadow of a Doubt. So instead of dodging the comparisons, South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Vengeance Trilogy) embraces […]

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Gangster Squad

An unconvincing facsimile of a crime drama, Gangster Squad, in the end, is merely a podunk action movie in a nice suit. Gangster Squad concerns a group of cops led by John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) who are forced to confront organized crime kingpin Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), vigilante-style, on account of their police department’s corruption.  The […]

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The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

I’m going to make you a promise: this review will be magic-trick-pun free and now, having read that, you can read the rest in peace. Brass tacks: despite its flaws, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is funny, and if you’re a comedy fan you should see it.  It’s performers are in top form, Jim Carrey plays […]

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The odd thing about the saying “too much of a good thing” is that it acknowledges the fact that, something, in general, is composed of an overabundance of excellence. There’s no qualifier, no additional phrase which augments the sentiment like “…and too much that’s terrible.” The maxim is meant to argue for a surplus, and […]

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Les Miserables (2012)

Some stories are so bulletproof that even a tuneless Russell Crowe can’t deliver a mortal wound. There are also some so prone to overwrought pathos that even a fearsomely committed Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, working every creative muscle in their bodies, can’t quite elevate to greatness. In Tom Hooper’s labor-of-love adaptation of the workhorse […]

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Jack Reacher

A lunatic sniper fires off rounds from a parking garage, killing five presumably random people on the streets below. Identified by a fingerprint, the former soldier is arrested and promptly interrogated. In lieu of a confession, he scrawls on a piece of paper, “GET JACK REACHER.” Whoa! Who’s Jack Reacher? A former military criminal investigator […]

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