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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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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Spectacular story
Tharp is the author of such bestsellers as Falling Dark, Knights of the Hill Country and Badd. With the release of the film adaptation of his critically acclaimed novel The Spectacular Now, Tharp doesn’t consider himself a young-adult writer but hasn’t strayed too far from the genre. “I became interested in writing about young adults […]
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Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection
Yet those were DVDs — and no-frills editions at that — whereas the new Legacy Collection is filled primarily with Blu-rays and loads of extras — about as many as the Boss is Big. Having just reviewed The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon and Game of Death, I won’t rehash those […]
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A Boy and His Dog
One would think that a film — boasting source material from a writer with an especially rabid following — that established the visual template for the now ubiquitous post-apocalyptic wasteland and stars Don Johnson would have caught on at some point over the past 38 years. Yet, not even when there was such a shortage […]
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Flying Fists of Kung Fu / Kickin’ It Shaolin Style
After about the third or fourth film I watched — either 5 Pattern Dragon Claws or 18 Fatal Strikes, I can’t be sure — I noticed how similar the movies were to another. I wasn’t exactly surprised, having digesting so many of these cheap chopsocky efforts over the years, but never in such close proximity. Basically, each […]
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The Brontë Sisters
The film stars Franco-actress standouts Isabelle Adjani (Possession) and Isabelle Huppert (Amour) before they were household names in international cinema. Adjani is Emily, the most recognized of the Brontë sisters; Huppert is Ann, the youngest; and the moral realist in the family and the oldest and least-known, Charlotte, is played by the late Marie-France Pisier […]
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Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics
Two vehicles for James Cagney anchor the box: 1931’s The Public Enemy and 1949’s White Heat. Today, he remains indelibly associated with tough-guy roles, and it’s easy to see why. In the former, he demonstrates his might and power with a grapefruit; in the latter, he makes an electrifying exit with the immortal cry of […]
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To the Wonder
His Tree of Life in 2011 earned praise and derision alike for its ambitions and meandering, largely plotless tale. It was my No. 1 film that year, but I had no idea at the time that it would look like Iron Man 3 when compared to his follow-up, To the Wonder. Now on Blu-ray and […]
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Amour
In other words, the guy is definitely not the lovey-dovey type. But that unblinking, cold-blooded aesthetic is largely what makes Amour, coming to home video after an Academy Award win for Best Foreign Language Film, so remarkable. In its depiction of an elderly Parisian couple coming to terms with illness and looming death, the film […]