As the film’s tagline goes, “Who is Salt?” Who cares? Assuming you still want to know the answer, “Salt” is a nicely shot action film of sheer just-below-averageness, doomed by a numb, plot-hole-aplenty script that asked me to suspend my disbelief more than I was willing. Salt is also the name of the CIA agent […]
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Great actors go slumming in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’ an occasionally fun film that over-explains
In 2005, “The Simpsons” featured an episode titled “Future-Drama,” in which Bart and Lisa get to see their lives eight years in the future. Aside from the “you’re gay for Moleman” line, one of the episode’s best gags comes when Marge announces, “Everything’s so easy since scientists invented magic!” It may not be the first […]
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Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’ an uncommonly intelligent blend of crime and fantasy
Remember when “The Matrix” came out in 1999 and its disciples treated it like a philosophy textbook? In reality, it was about as deep as those plastic turtle wading pools you can buy at Walmart. Its stinky sequels proved the emperor wore no clothes. They should have saved their praise for “Inception,” because it’s a […]
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Exit Through the Gift Shop’ explores how art becomes commodity, or maybe it’s performance art
When my son, Zachary, was about 12, we visited Memphis. At that city’s most important holy site, I bought Graceland Platinum Tour tickets, which took us not only through the mansion and its grounds, but also the “Elvis Lives in Hollywood” exhibit, Elvis’ Automobile Museum, the “Elvis Presley: Fashion King” exhibit, Elvis’ two custom airplanes […]
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Cyrus
As played by Jonah Hill (“Get Him to the Greek”) in the new dramedy by writer/director siblings Jay and Mark Duplass, the 21-year-old Cyrus lives at home with his single mom, eschews things like “school” and “work,” and spends his time composing techno tunes on his cache of synthesizers. That all adds up to trouble […]
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Despite a few moments of inspiration, ‘Despicable Me’ is disposable stuff
Among the pop-culture treasures of Mad magazine is its venerable “Spy vs. Spy” series. With its two saboteurs hell-bent on doing each other in, the comic strip is a wry send-up of dastardly high-tech espionage. “Despicable Me,” a new computer-generated, 3-D animated movie that involves a pair of adversarial supervillains, is at its best when […]
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An action-packed franchise film with all the right parts, ‘Predators’ works for the most part
If it’s not the best formula ever devised for suspense films, it surely must be in the top three: A group of strangers are gathered together for an unknown reason and then are killed off one at a time by an invisible presence. They figure out what they have in common ” in this case, […]
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The softcore vampiric tryst heats up for ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,’ overshadowing its predecessor
Every now and then, a pop culture phenomenon comes along that forces us to either love to hate it, or hate ourselves for loving it. “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Boy bands. The 1980s. Undoubtedly, “The Twilight Saga” and its glittery, brooding vampire heroes outshine them all. (The more than $30 million it took […]
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Old-school noir in a modern way, ‘The Square’ cuts a dark, twisted path through betrayal and revenge
Back in the day, filmmakers were careful to maintain a certain moral hierarchy, making sure that the bad people got what they deserved, and the good people walked off with maybe a scratch or two, but no real damage. It was just an understood thing, a product of the studio system in which content ” […]
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With ‘The Last Airbender,’ M. Night Shyamalan makes what may be his worst film yet
Chunks of “The Last Airbender” are so spellbindingly awful, they approach a perverse kind of majesty. Larded with incomprehensible storytelling, flimsy characterization and dialogue so groan-inducing, it makes George Lucas’ “Star Wars” prequels look like David Mamet, the movie’s missteps brush the heights of what might have been campy appeal. Alas, even those comparatively fun […]