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 […]
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Kill Me Now
PREVIEWS Continuing what Hollywood does frequently if not always effectively, the remake of the 1957 film of the same title 3:10 to Yuma opens Friday, Sept. 7. Based on the short story by Elmore Leonard, now well known for his tongue-in-cheek thrillers, the film tells the story of rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale replacing Van […]
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Coronation of Cheadle — Great performances buoy Talk to Me, Becoming Jane
Note: Thanks to Jay Herzog for his literate but totally misguided reviews the past two weeks. (Just kidding, except for the literate part.) Also, apologies to my editor — I really did think about going toSuperbadbut it was fourth in a list of four. I’ll try to improve, honest. Previews Opening Friday, Aug. 24, is […]
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Summer Sunshine and Stardust
Previews Hello, film fans. The peripatetic Charlie Myers is once again out wandering the globe, so for the second week in a row you’re stuck with a know-nothing’s guide to this week’s new releases. And from where I sit, this week may well go down in the annals as The Week That Bad Films Happened […]
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Dumb Samberg, smart Bourne
Previews It’s the biggest opening weekend in months, and our own Charlie Myers has successfully ducked the onslaught by scampering away to Maryland. You’re stuck with an amateur’s picks of the flicks. In ascending order of importance: *Skinwalkers* . The publicity says that "Two sects of werewolves battle one another for control of a half-human/half-werewolf […]
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Lindsay Lohan’s bad week
Previews Opening Friday, August 3 is the concluding film of the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum , which began in 2002 with The Bourne Identity . These spy thrillers, based on the novels of Robert Ludlum, are on my all-time top five list for this genre (which, pending my actually seeing Ultimatum , only leaves […]
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Hairspray, Larry and Harry
Previews I suppose the major opening on Friday, July 20, is Hairspray , a film musical based on the successful Broadway musical that was, in turn, based on John Waters’ 1988 campy film comedy of the same name. There is no John Waters in sight here, as the film version is directed by sometime choreographer […]
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‘Ratatouille’ charms, ‘Transformers’ disappoints
Previews Opening Wednesday, July 11, is one of the major films of the summer: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix . The fifth in the Boy Wizard series features the usual all-star cast of British actors and new director David Yates who will also helm the sixth Harry Potter ( Half-Blood Prince ). […]