OK, so that’s not really a joke. It is the setup for Badges of Fury, an Asian film that is a joke. Investigating this string of so-called “Smile Murders” are two police detectives: the grizzled old pro (Jet Li, The Expendables 2) and the young renegade (Zhang Wen, The Guillotines). Having Li in a film used to be a surefire […]
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A Single Shot
Shot‘s sights are set on John (Sam Rockwell), a dirt-poor hunter who mistakes a young woman for a deer — not necessarily a negative except that a trigger was involved and John’s aim is true. When he tends to her dead body, he finds a lot of cash next to her and assumes it won’t be missed. […]
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The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box
The Midas Box of the title is an ancient object that turns anything it houses into gold. Hidden for centuries, it can be found only via the one map in existence that reveals its location. Naturally, a very bad man named Otto Luger (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park) has found the map, so it’s only a […]
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Cat People
Director Paul Schrader (The Canyons) bravely forged a new path in updating the 1942 RKO classic — evident from frame one with a gorgeous prologue, unfolding slowly with a dreamlike quality. Purposely abstract and erotic, it’s the kind of sequence the legendary Val Lewton never would have considered four decades earlier, even if the squeaky-clean […]
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August: Osage County
“Don’t get all Carson McCullers on us,” Julia Roberts’ character warns a relative, referring to the 20th-century author who specialized in stories of Southern tragicomedy. The film takes its own advice — its first and greatest misstep. With Tulsa-born Tracy Letts adapting his 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning play for the screen, August: Osage County should wear […]
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Her
To a degree, Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are) presents a vintage man vs. machine conflict, primarily in Theodore’s desire for connection, which is paired with and pitted against Samantha’s ability to emote and grow internally. What distinguishes their circumstance, however, is that it exists within the fragile confines of a relationship. Jonze illustrates this […]
Posted inMusic
Got that swing
After making a name for himself in the Oklahoma music scene as a solo act, Kyle Reid returns to the stage with a toe-tappin’, finger-snappin’ brass band. They have crowned themselves the Low Swingin’ Chariots, and it has become a project that Reid can’t believe took him so long to get to. “I saw a […]
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Straying from the norm
Photo: Doug Seymour Don’t bother asking The Stray Birds how they came up with their beautifully evocative name. Even they’ve forgotten by now. “We were trying to name the project and felt like we should be some kind of bird. Obviously, The Byrds is out,” said Oliver Craven, the band’s jack-of-alltrades. “We travel around a […]
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The Best Films of 2013
10. Instructions Not Included Popular Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez made his directorial debut with this heartwarming — and heartbreaking — Spanish-language comedy that became one of the biggest cinematic successes of 2013. Derbez is the womanizing Valentín who, after a baby is abandoned on his doorstep, mostly reforms into a near-perfect dad. The setup is […]
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Cassadaga
Until then, the scope shifts to focus on Lily (Kelen Coleman, TV’s The Newsroom), a pretty music teacher who happens to be deaf. (You wouldn’t know it from Coleman’s performance; although the appealing actress uses sign language, she also speaks at a perfectly normal pitch and volume at all times.) Grieving her dead sister, Lily […]