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Neil Diamond’ Dreams

while there’s nothing wrong with that, either, the production’ courtesy of Mr. D’ sounds curiously flat. Even at high volumes, these “Dreams” don’t crackle like they should. In what feels like an end-stage retrospective, Diamond tackles a pair of Beatles tunes (“Yesterday” and “Blackbird”) alongside tunes by The Eagles, Bill Withers and himself (“I’m a […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Iron Man: Extremis

I didn’t realize “Iron Man: Extremis” was an animated film in the “motion comics” sense, as I find that approach stilted, lazy and uninvolving. This feature-length treatment of Warren Ellis and Adi Granov’s 2006 six-issue series updates the armored Avenger’s origin for our more high-tech times. In half a dozen serialized episodes, the story of […]

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Coopers’ Christmas

tive=9325&creativeASIN=B003YZGWF0″>Coopers’ Christmas,” which has to be not only an instant cult classic, but a new annual tradition. It’s “Christmas Vacation” with the one thing it really lacked: a hard-R rating. Starring “Daily Show” married couple Jason Jones (who co-wrote) and Samantha Bee, the film captures one crazy Christmas in 1985, all via a barely used […]

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The Terror Within/Dead Space

Leave it to skinflint producer Roger Corman to remake his own films, themselves rip-offs of massive hits. Whereas 1979’s now-classic “Alien” prompted him to follow with 1982’s “Forbidden World,” he couldn’t settle for the small fortune it brought in, and remade “World” as “Dead Space” in 1990, at the height of the VHS rental age. […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Once You Kiss a Stranger

Imagine if “Fatal Attraction” were made in 1969, but featured way more golf. That’s “Once You Kiss a Stranger” in a nutshell (emphasis on “nut), yet that’s not to demean the little-known thriller, now available as a manufactured-on-demand disc from Warner Archive. Despite “? or perhaps because of “? its datedness, this remains one fun […]

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