If you didn’t know going in that “The Pursuit of Happyness” ultimately ends on an uplifting note, it might seem like an exercise in unmitigated misery. Based on a real-life rags-to-riches story, the movie subjects its protagonist to travails that stop just short of finding him tied to the railroad tracks. Set in the San […]
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Posted inArts & Culture
A Florida political consultant’s career is in jeopardy for missing a payment on a storage locker
Doug Guetzloe, one of central Florida’s most prominent political operatives (and a subject of investigations by the Florida Elections Commission and a highway agency in Orlando), had long eluded criminal charges by denying any knowledge of unethical activities that prosecutors were sure he was involved in. However, late last year, Guetzloe missed a payment on […]
Posted inMusic
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Merge It’s a little disappointing to get what may be the best record of 2007 so early in the year. It sets a dangerous precedent unlikely to be matched. The group’s second full-length release, “Neon Bible,” sounds like its 2004 debut: huge and orchestral, with strings, drones and organs weaving in and out. The album […]
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Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Reviewers’ grade: D An animated movie about talking food items, robots and weird space creatures shouldn’t be this boring, but the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” doesn’t work on the screen remotely as well as it does on cable television. The film follows the adventures of Frylock, Master Shake and their little- pile-of-meat cohort, Meatwad, as […]
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Are We Done Yet?
If you can’t say something nice about something, my mother always taught me, don’t say anything at all. Bearing that in mind, let me just say that “Are We Done Yet?” could be much worse. A loose remake of 1948’s “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and a sequel to 2005’s best-forgotten “Are We […]
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The Namesake
Reviewers’ grade: A-In chronicling two generations of an Indian American family, “The Namesake” mines the divide between cultural identity and assimilation. Our story begins in 1977 with the arranged Indian marriage of scholarly Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan) and beautiful Ashima (Tabu). They move to New York, struggling with this strange new world and raising two […]
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The Reaping
Reviewers’ grade: CHilary Swank takes a break from winning Oscars to star in this adequately creepy tale of a small Louisiana backwater town that is visited by the 10 plagues of the Old Testament. Working as a religious mythbuster, Swank believes that all miracles can be explained away by science until frogs start dying like […]
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Grindhouse
tino, we find two groups of female friends who run into “? literally “? homicidal road maniac Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), who chases them with his skull-emblazoned kill-car. Sandwiched between the movies are four faux trailers (with special guest directors) that steal the show. If you long for senseless gore and stomach-churning car chases, go […]
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Blades of Glory
STRONG>BWill Ferrell and Jon Heder played two disgraced figure skaters who have been banned from the sport for life. When they realize that they are banned as singles skaters only, the pair makes a joint comeback as the world’s first all-male doubles team. And that’s the part of the movie that actually makes a little sense. Most […]
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The Lookout
Reviewers’ grade: A- Film noir heroes tend to be damaged goods, but even by those dour standards, Chris Pratt, the protagonist of “The Lookout,” is more damaged than most. Once a popular high school jock, Chris has suffered a head injury that leaves him barely able to execute the most innocuous tasks. Haunted by the […]