Even my children’s worst moments are still above the best moments of the snotty, self-absorbed, home-schooled brats of The Bling Ring, Oscar winner Sofia Coppola’s follow-up to 2010’s snooze-worthy Somewhere. A dramatization of a real-life California teen crime spree (previously made into a 2011 Lifetime movie of the same name), the film follows several high […]
Rod Lott
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The Fugitive: 20th Anniversary Edition
Even people who have never seen it — shame on you — tend to know what it’s about: Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford, never better) is accused of murdering his wife. The cops don’t believe his story of the real culprit being a one-armed man … and neither does the jury that sentences him to […]
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Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
This meteoric rise and fall is chronicled in Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, a documentary that both celebrates and vilifies its subject, because it tells the truth. Mort would’ve loved it; Mort would’ve hated it. I love it. Predictably, directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy Newberger gain much mileage from the prodigious […]
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The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue
Co-directors/co-writers/co-producers Mike Bradecich and John LaFlamboy also co-star as the Mugg brothers, slackers who run the crappy abode where a mole man (Justin DiGiacomo) lurks the halls for dogs and cats to consume, before moving up the food chain to humans. Any ingenuity begins and ends with the title; Bradecich and LaFlamboy mug(g) their way […]
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The Haunting of Helena
Newly divorced, Sophia (Harriet MacMasters-Green) moves with her young daughter, Helena (bland first-timer Sabrina Jolie Perez), to one of those incredible old apartment buildings in south Italy. In the basement, Helena takes a fancy to an armoire with deep scratch marks on the doors’ insides, so they have it moved into the girl’s room. In […]
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Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
Fresh from a mental hospital, Jessica (Zohra Lampert, The Exorcist III) is taken by her husband, Duncan (Barton Heyman, The Super Cops) to a farmhouse with a cove nearby for a fresh start. If only Duncan had known that it’s reportedly haunted, which can’t be good for Jessica’s fragile psyche. Almost immediately upon their arrival […]
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Stories We Tell
In this intensely personal, potentially embarrassing work, actress-turned-director Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz) gathers her brothers, sisters, father and family friends in order to piece together a portrait of her late mother, Diane, who died of cancer when Sarah still a child. That alone is hardly remarkable enough to merit a feature-length look. Note, however, […]
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Star Trek Into Darkness
That man, Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock), goes into hiding in the one spot in the galaxy too dangerous for Kirk and company to follow him to: a Klingon planet. However, never underestimate the idealistic hothead that is Kirk, especially when he’s on a mission of vengeance. For him, rallying buy-in among his crew is a […]
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The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond
The horror film begins in 1927 Turkey, where an excavation unearths cave etchings of the great god Pan, which somehow inspires one of the explorers to craft a board game based on what they found. Skip to present-day Maine, where that board game is found in a lakeside cabin by — surprise! — a bunch […]
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Now You See Me
In this summer’s sleeper hit, four magicians of varying specialties and egos are brought together by a mysterious, hoodied benefactor. Played by Jesse Eisenberg (30 Minutes or Less), Woody Harrelson (Seven Psychopaths), Isla Fisher (The Great Gatsby) and Dave Franco (21 Jump Street), they perform a live trick to end all tricks: robbing a bank […]