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Down to business; business accomplished
Getting low means getting down to business, in the parlance of the backwoods oddity played, wonderfully, by Robert Duvall in Get Low. Let’s get down to business, then. This film, calm but full of feeling, relays an intriguing story brought to life by some ...
Missed payoff
Maybe in a few years, the high-flying machinations of notorious Washington puppet-master Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, his partner in crime, will be funny. But even with Kevin Spacey trying his carnival barker hardest in Casino Jack, it still feels too painfully...
A magical tale through film history
Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is a scruffy orphan who lives in forgotten spaces hidden in the walls of Gare Montparnasse, a bustling train station located in the center of Paris. It’s 1931 and memories of The Great War are fresh, even as everyone tries to resume their ...
reel to reel | Week of Feb 2, 2012
Addiction Inc In the 1980s, Victor DeNoble was a research scientist at a major tobacco company, where he was given the task of finding a substitute for nicotine that would not cause heart attacks. He succeeded, but in the process he proved something that the ...
Forgettable
If you’ve ever seen an online profile picture, chances are you’re familiar with the pursed-lips, craned-neck, supposedly slimming contortion known affectionately as “the duckface.” Total Recall is the sci-fi tale of a quasi-postapocalyptic duckface war between Kate ...
Remake worth watching
Most of the big laughs in 21 Jump Street arrive in the first half, but take a moment to consider that phrase “big laughs.” What was the last stupid Hollywood comedy — good-stupid, not stupid-stupid — to offer actual, audible big laughs? Heartily raunchy and rather ...
I Kent believe it got better!
Superman is lame. Fight it all you want to, DC Comic loyalists, but there’s a reason people cheer whenever Batman bests him. Consumed by a fetishized, flag-waving patriotism that makes his status as a full-fledged illegal alien somewhat hilarious these days, Superman...
