Based on a particularly well-received run of issues in the 1980s by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, The Wolverine transports our indestructible, retractable-claw hero (Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables) back to Japan — “back” because he spent some time there as a P.O.W. during World War II, where he saved the life of an enemy soldier […]
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The Snake God
Directed by Django co-scripter Piero Vivarelli, the mostly plotless Italian film follows the beautiful Paola (Nadia Cassini, Starcrash) to the luscious Caribbean, where she makes a fast friend with Stella (Beryl Cunningham, The Weekend Murders), a local babe with membership in a voodoo cult. That’s where the title comes into play, as seemingly endless drum […]
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The Horror Show
Aliens‘ Lance Henriksen stars as Lucas McCarthy, a police detective tormented by the memory of sneering evil killer Max Jenke (Brion James, Blade Runner), whom he helped put in prison. Jenke is sentenced to death and bursts into flames in the electric chair. Somehow he busts out of the straps and walks across the room […]
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The Wolf of Wall Street
The rise-and-fall story of real-life former penny-stocks swindler Jordan Belfort exudes a definite vibe of Scorsese déjà vu, most notably Goodfellas and Casino, even if the characters here are entitled white dudes instead of Mafiosi. Like Belfort himself, Wolf is wild, vulgar and often a helluva lot of fun. But also like its antihero, the […]
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American Hustle
Masking baldness is a small ruse, to be sure, but it’s par for the course in David O. Russell’s (Three Kings, Silver Linings Playbook) loping, loopy and very funny caper set in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The story is loosely based on Abscam, a 1980 FBI sting operation that netted bribery convictions of […]
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Saving Mr. Banks
This holiday season, Hollywood’s gift to itself — oh, you shouldn’t have! — is also Walt Disney Pictures’ Christmas offering to moviegoers: Saving Mr. Banks, a depiction of the trying times that went into the making of Disney’s 1964 classic Mary Poppins. Unwrapping it, you may be surprised to learn that so much material is […]
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Sanitarium
Coming in before the New Year’s bell is Sanitarium, in which three unknown directors contribute tales exploring mental illness, each centered on a patient at a padded-wall institution run by Dr. Stenson (Malcolm McDowell, Silent Night), our host. First up, in “Figuratively Speaking,” an artist played by Scrooge‘s John Glover (sporting dreadlocks that make him […]
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Unhung Hero
That poor schmo left kneeling awkwardly is Patrick Moote, a Los Angeles actor/comedian who later found out that his girlfriend wouldn’t accept his marriage proposal for one teeny-tiny reason: his penis. As in, it’s too small. Until her admission, Moote wasn’t aware of his deficiency, so he instantly joined one of the 2 billion men […]
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Muscle Shoals
Even in what has been an impressive year for the rock ’n’ roll documentary — or rockumentary, if you wanna sound like Rolling Stone magazine — Muscle Shoals stands out. How could it not? The film, which screens Thursday through Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, chronicles the irresistible oddity of Muscle Shoals, […]
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Escape from Tomorrow
With Escape from Tomorrow, one fears the story behind the movie would loom larger than the movie itself. Luckily, that is not the case. After all, it opens with a decapitation on Disney World’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster. For those who don’t know, much of Escape from Tomorrow was shot surreptitiously at Disney […]