While most of it is my fault, I like to take comfort in the idea that I was doomed from the get-go: • Blame a Depression-era father who forced me to clean my plate through shame and guilt.• Blame a public school free-lunch system that taught gravy as a food group.• Blame cable television for being so […]
sequel
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Oblivion
In 2077, post-nuclear war, Earth is largely uninhabitable, sending survivors to live on one of Saturn’s moons. Cruise’s Jack Harper cruises the skies over the former New York City to guard giant water-sucking machines from attacks. He’s aided in his daily missions by the watchful eye of Victoria (Andrea Riseborough, Disconnect), who works behind a […]
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RED 2
Its inevitable successor, RED 2 (the acronym stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous,” per the comic-book source material), is, instead, a caricature of a caricature, one that revels in its lack of substance to the point of phlegmatic disinterest. The film revisits retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis, A Good Day to Die Hard), who, […]
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Evil Dead
In Sam Raimi’s wildly original, wildly influential The Evil Dead of 1981, five friends into the woods for a cabin getaway and couldn’t get away from the demons they accidentally summon from an ancient book. In his feature debut, Uruguay director Fede Alvarez retains that setup, minus the vacation. In his vision, the young men […]
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Anatomy / Anatomy 2
As Paula quickly discovers through her studies, there exists a crazy, frat-like organization on campus whose members like to perform autopsies. What’s so crazy about that? The surgeons of this secret society like to perform said autopsies on live humans. Naturally, that results in danger for her and creepy imagery for us. Slick, sick and […]
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The Last Exorcism Part II
She even gets a job cleaning hotel rooms and attracts the eye of a boy who works there (Spencer Treat Clark, 2009’s The Last House on the Left remake). But she can’t escape everything — namely, the demon still inside her. Still produced in part by Eli Roth (Hostel) but directed by new blood Ed […]
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Monsters University
But that’s not college — that’s high school. Whatever it is, Monsters University, which opens Friday, certainly isn’t the overachiever that its predecessor was. While not on the failure level of, say, Cars 2, this disappointing effort is mildly redeemed by an involving third act — at just about the time pint-sized viewers are apt […]
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The Philadelphia Experiment
Based on the 1984 sci-fi movie of the same name, this made-for-Syfy version doesn’t improve upon the premise of scientists cracking invisibility. Again, it has terrible consequences — namely, a World War II destroyer ship suddenly transported to a modern-day runway. Holy Battleship! Coffee barista Molly (Emilie Ullerup, TV’s Sanctuary) worries when her cop boyfriend […]
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Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Granted, that title tells you everything you need to know. Armed with steampunk weaponry and high-gloss camp, siblings Hansel (Jeremy Renner, The Bourne Legacy) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton, Clash of the Titans) have devoted their lives to dispatching witches. In the case of this film, their current target is one (Famke Janssen, Taken 2) responsible […]
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Sadako 3D
This time, that creepy, crawling girl with the stringy black hair known as Sadako (Ai Hashimoto) comes not through TV sets, but computer and smartphone screens. The cursed VHS tape is now a cursed video clip of a live suicide, and anyone who views it immediately kills himself or herself. Well, anyone except pretty, young […]