The American film industry operates under the general rule that the narrative of any animated film must be simple enough for a small child to follow completely, a practice that harms kids more than it helps them, in that they are, as a result, very rarely exposed to the kind of sophisticated storytelling that might […]
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The “five-day weekend” over Thanksgiving has become a less popular time for Hollywood studios to release hot new movies than it used to be. As a result, the top three box office performers this year were films in their second and third weekends of release: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” at the
Weekend Box Office: “Twilight,” “Skyfall,” “Lincoln” beat openers Read More »
While Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors” leaves viewers with dozens of questions due to its deliberate lack of a conventional narrative structure and any exposition whatsoever, the ideas that Carax explores in the film become rather clear after one’s initial befuddlement over the story details subsides. Of course, the film is so unlike anything audiences have
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The task of adapting Leo Tolstoy’s 864 page, multi-volume novel “Anna Karenina” for the silver screen undoubtedly possesses a high level of difficulty, not just due to the obvious challenge of condensing such a detailed work into a two-hour production, but because one must be very creative in finding a new angle to tell such
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“Lincoln” is not a biopic of President Abraham Lincoln, as the title might suggest, but a look at the legislative process through which he came to be known as the Great Emancipator. Large swaths of the movie are more akin to CSPAN 1865 than a comprehensive look at the man or the issues of his
Bill Condon is the best thing that could have ever happened to the “Twilight” franchise. After two paralytically humorless sequels that pleased little more than diehard fans, the acclaimed director of “Kinsey” and “Dreamgirls” unexpectedly took the reigns on the series’ fourth entry and effectively restored the original’s endearing fusion of teen film romance and
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David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” sets itself up for disappointment by initially adopting the appearance of a sophisticated movie that it’s not. The premise–two mentally ill people, he bipolar and she coping with the death of her husband, fall in love despite their difficulties with day-to-day life–suggests that the film is the rare romantic-comedy
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Just as I predicted in this weekend’s Box Office Beat column, the final installment of the “Twilight Saga” franchise, “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” was able to duplicate the box office success of its predecessor and gross in the $140m opening weekend range — $141.3m, to be exact. That’s a strong finish for what has
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“Skyfall,” is, like all James Bond films to some degree, a conservative work. That’s not to say politically conservative, but stylistically, the way that it safely fits within the cinematic zeitgeist. And as an action film of the times, “Skyfall” serves as a fine example. Audiences have come to expect their heroes broken and stripped
It took me two full reels to get into “This Must Be The Place”–an experience that I suspect many viewers will have with the film–because I wasn’t sure if I was willing to accept Sean Penn’s singular protagonist as the real deal. Even though Penn is among the finest working actors today, the character can’t
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