To review the movie, I need only tell you what it’s about. The dictator of communist Albania has swiped dozens of United States “world leaders,” including Butterfly McQueen, Johnny Weismuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Dorothy Lamour, Xavier Cugat, Col. Sanders, Busby Berkeley, the Bowery Boys, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. (Mind you, all of them appear as […]
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Iron Sky
The Nazis mistake the landing as a prelude to an invasion, so the Third Reich prepares to strike the earth before the earth can strike it. Iron Sky has all the makings of a big batch of poor taste. Instead, it’s an inspired goof of a spoof that bridges the worlds of highbrow and lowbrow […]
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Steve Niles’ Remains
Making Reno, Nev., look like a miserable stinkhole of a city — and that’s even before any undead show up — Remains focuses on the dozens of denizens who play and work in the Silver Star Hotel and Casino. When a government test of a new “nuke oven” goes awry, everyone who’s not, say, having […]
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The Divide
No sooner as the movie opened than a nuclear bomb has dropped. The precious few apartment building residents with the most recognizable, screen-friendly faces are those who conveniently find shelter in the basement, barricaded by a huge steel door that the supe, Mickey (Michael Biehn, Take Me Home Tonight), seals to keep out any radiation. […]
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Miss Bala
Maria was also full of praise, earning an Academy Award nomination; Miss Bala was Mexico’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, but failed to make the cut. It feels like an inferior duplicate — not vastly inferior, but noticeably, thanks to a running time that grows as repetitive as those […]
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Song for Norman
The pair came to the decision while planning the opening of the Norman Philharmonic. “I wanted an anthem that would be really involved in Norman,” said Thompson. “I wanted something that would connect generations of the city.” Zielinski asked a friend in Minnesota, Grammy-winning composer Libby Larsen, to write it. She agreed and shortly thereafter […]