Screen

‘Sherlock Holmes’ looks good, but no reinvention

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I've been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detail-oriented detective, Sherlock Holmes, for as long as I can remember. The Holmes canon is extraordinarily rich and directors as talented as Billy Wilder and Barry Levinson have tackled it with varying levels ...

Hawkes’ virginity Hunt-ed

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America’s Puritanical origins mean that “sweetly sexual” may sound oxymoronic, but that phrase absolutely defines The Sessions, the softest and kindest movie to ever feature a star of Mad About You buck nekkid. Although nudity being “integral to the role” is a con ...

Strangled love

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Set in Scranton, Pa., and Brooklyn, N.Y., Blue Valentine depicts a working class marriage hanging by threads of resentment, contempt and love, a very tricky braid to unravel. At its best, the drama captures little bits and pieces of a relationship, the telltale signs...

‘This isn’t a comic book’

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Writer/director Jeff Wadlow’s Kick-Ass 2 is “morning radio shock jock” offensive, which is a thematic departure from the source material written by Mark Millar. But is it better to flinch from the vile, reprobate, misogynistic glee of Millar’s comic miniseries or to ...

Thanks, Morgan Freeman

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I’ll be honest, in the spirit of the honestly shameless heartwarmer Dolphin Tale. I saw it in a somewhat distracted, agitated state...

‘Fury’ is missing fast

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Inside of writer/director David Fury is “we will hold this line” war movie populated with complex characters and surprisingly good performances. Problem is, it was slipped into the carcass vAC of a dirty, confused, overly serious, inconsistently grotesque snoozer in...

When the system fails

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The first 15 minutes of Kirby Dick’s new documentary, The Invisible War, contain a staggering opening salvo...

Bad advice

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Featuring an all-star cast of irreproachable actors ... and also Cameron Diaz, The Counselor had Ridley Scott at the helm and an original screenplay written by Cormac McCarthy. All the ingredients in this cinematic recipe are independently delicious; so why does the ...

Solid-iron fun

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Iron Man 2 is not a perfect movie, but it’s sure fun and engaging. The new story twists, the health issue that Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) faces and the half-baked but disturbing archenemy Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) add up to a film that’s sure to be the first ...

Magic needed

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I really liked Fantasia (1940) as a kid and recall being amazed at how well the music and animation synchronized in one of the most trippy of the Disney animated films. The centerpiece of Fantasia was the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene, where Mickey Mouse used magic ...

Bungled burlesque

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The choicest dialogue in Burlesque provokes the sort of laughter that other, intentionally funny films only dream of generating. Gather ’round for some free samples...

Sherlock Holmes minus the mystery

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While I enjoyed the 2009 Guy Ritchie reinvention of the fabled detective in Sherlock Holmes, applying the same formula in this newer film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows proved more a boring, tedious exercise in special effects and self-conscious filmmaking and ...