Previews Finally arriving locally on Friday, Feb. 22, is the Mexican ghost story The Orphanage , a first feature from Juan Antonio Bayona wherein Laura (Belén Rueda) purchases her childhood home to open an orphanage only to discover that her son’s imaginary friend is anything but benign. In Spanish with English subtitles. Rated R for […]
Screens
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Fool’s Film
Previews If it’s Valentine’s Day, it must be time for…new film openings. Four films open locally on Feb. 14, including the family-friendly The Spiderwick Chronicles from director Mark Waters (Freaky Friday; Mean Girls), an adventure story wherein Freddie Highmore plays twins Jared and Simon Grace, who find themselves transported to an alternate universe. As a […]
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Blinded by the Bland
Previews Opening Friday, Feb. 8, is four-time Oscar-nominated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly(cinematography, directing, editing, adapted screenplay). Director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat; Before Night Falls) seems to specialize in biographical films and this one is no exception. Diving Bell, based on the best-selling book by the former editor of the fashion magazine Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby, […]
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A Masterpiece
Previews Another month, another Hollywood Asian horror film rip-off … or "adaptation," if you’re more kindly inclined. Opening Friday, Feb. 1, is The Eye , based on the Pang Brothers’ Ji?†n Gu«ê, which was released in 2002. The latest version is co-produced by Tom Cruise and stars Jessica Alba as violinist Sydney, blind since childhood, […]
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I Have Seen Cloverfield
Previews There’s more blood, a spoof, a never-say die Stallone and Diane Lane versus a serial killer coming up this Friday, Jan. 25. The Oscar multiple-nominated There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day Lewis as a turn-of-the-century oil baron who brooks no competition. The film is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia) from a script […]
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Pith and Treacle
Previews I can’t think of a better couple to buy meat pies from than Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, particularly when the main ingredient isn’t exactly legal. Opening Friday, Jan. 18, is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim from an 1840s serialized story. Directed by […]
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Teen scenes
Previews Just in time for a possible Academy Awards nomination, Atonement opens locally Friday, Jan. 11. Based on the fine 2001 novel by Ian McEwan, Atonement stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as young lovers whose relationship is torn asunder by the false accusations of a younger sister (played by Saoirse Ronan at age 13, […]
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No Debate
Film fans, do not be alarmed: Charlie is out of town for the week, but he shall return! We also happen to know he is in a land barren of palatable movie offerings, a land desicate of modern culture, a land so pure as the driven snow as to be devoid of all cultural ambition […]
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Charlie digs Charlie
Openings CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR Easily the most interesting of the four local openings last Friday, Charlie Wilson’s War, directed by Mike Nichols with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin (West Wing), is an ironic and ultimately serious look at the U.S. covert involvement in the war between Soviet forces and the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s. […]
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I Am Bland
Previews The Christmas onslaught kicks into overdrive beginning this Friday, Dec. 21, and continues on Christmas day. Based on George Crile’s 2007 book of the same title as adapted by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (TV’s The West Wingand the short-lived Studio 60) and helmed by veteran Mike Nichols, Charlie Wilson’s War is about how the swinging […]
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Epically Bland
Previews Opening Friday, Dec. 14, is I Am Legend, yet another version of the apocalyptic 1954 novel by Richard Matheson. Will Smith is the military’s virus guy, taking over the role previously played by Charlton Heston (The Omega Man, 1971) and Vincent Price (The Last Man on Earth, 1964). It seems some really nasty virus […]
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‘No Country ‘ Thrills, Chills
Previews Once again, there are only two films opening locally on Friday, Dec. 7, which makes my life easier. The Golden Compass, the first installment of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, stars Nicole Kidman, the most recent "Bond Girl" Eva Green, Daniel Craig and Sam Elliot in a fantasy tale involving alternate universes and […]