Previews There may only be two new openings on Friday, Nov. 30, but happily one of them is No Country for Old Men, based on the dark novel by Cormac McCarthy and adapted and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. With a cast that includes Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson […]
Screens
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Beowulf – Medieval Bores
Previews Okay, it’s the holiday season so sugar is the order of the day, and none will probably be more sickly sweet than Robin Williams in August Rush. Freddie Highmore plays the title character, who grows into a musical prodigy under the tutelage of Williams’ wizard character and then uses his musical gifts to locate […]
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Lame Lions
Previews Opening Friday, Nov. 16, following in the footsteps of last year’s 300, Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf brings another digitally enhanced warrior to the screen for your viewing pleasure. The film uses the technology of "performance capture" seen in The Polar Express to tell the story of the misunderstood monster who has been terrorizing us humans […]
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Gangster drags
Previews Alas, the Christmas season is upon us. Opening Friday, Nov. 9, is Fred Claus , in which Paul Giamatti plays Santa, who hires his jealous and irascible older brother Fred (Vince Vaughn) as a worker in order to get him out of jail. Making toys is not what Fred is suited for. With a […]
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Limited Indeed
Previews I suppose the major opening on Friday, Nov. 2 is American Gangster , a film based on a true story and directed by Ridley Scott in a return to the action film genre. Starring heavyweights Denzel Washington as a Harlem drug king and Russell Crowe as the cop determined to take him down, the […]
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A Great Film Week
‘La Vie en Rose’ Previews Finally, opening locally on Friday, Oct. 26, is Julie Taymor’s ( Frida ) homage to Beatles music, Across the Universe , a film that uses the Liverpool group’s songs to tell a generational love story. The trailer looks promising. Rated PG-13 for some drug content, nudity, sexuality, violence and language. […]
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Clooney Good, Wahlberg Bad
Previews Come back, Charlie Myers! There’s a zillion movies opening this week, and we have neither the chops nor the time to say anything interesting about them. So we’re just going to run through them rapid-fire, and hope that the massive Hollywood marketing campaigns can fill in the blanks. Assassination of Jesse James by the […]
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Ben Stiller, You Schmuck
Previews For my money, the pick of the week has gotta be Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which, believe it or not, is a sequel to the great Cate Blanchett Elizabeth pic from a few years ago. (Sorry, Internet’s down.) Blanchett is back for the sequel, as is Geoffrey Rush as Walsingham, the devious Machiavelli-quoting proto-spy. […]
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All Bases Covered
Previews No, I can’t get enough of Jane Austen. Opening Friday, Oct. 5, is The Jane Austen Book Club, based on the popular novel by Karen Joy Fowler. Written and directed by Robin Swicord, who wrote the screenplay for Memoirs of a Geisha, the story is about a Jane Austen book club in California whose […]
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Welcome Back, Cronenberg
Previews Opening Friday, Sept. 14, The Kingdom is about an F.B.I. team that investigates an act of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. See review below. Written and directed by Paul Haggis ( Crash ), In the Valley of Elah stars Tommy Lee Jones as a career officer and Susan Sarandon as his wife. They try to […]
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Buscemi’s Chatty Side
Previews David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence was one of my top films of 2005. Now he’s back with Eastern Promises, again starring Viggo Mortensen, who is here teamed with the excellent Naomi Watts. Crime and violence are now centered in London, as we follow the stories of crime family member Nikolai (Mortensen) and midwife […]
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Gypsies, Cowboys and Prodigies
Previews I’m expecting Jodie Foster to bring a lot more class to the revenge vigilante film than Kevin Bacon did recently. In The Brave One , opening Friday, Sept. 14, Foster is in her element as a woman bent on revenge after suffering a brutal attack, in a film directed by Neil Jordan. Terrence Howard […]