The opening minutes serve as a nifty precursor for the action, both physical and psychological, to follow. Stunt motorcycle driver Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling, Gangster Squad) emerges from a darkened trailer and into a traveling carnival. As the camera trails him over his shoulder, Luke gets on his cycle, enters the caged globe of death […]
thriller
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Dragon
The reason? Science! As a friend put it, Dragon plays like CSI: Kung Fu. I’d add a dash of Rashomon. Set in 1917, it opens with kindly papermaker/family man (Donnie Yen, Ip Man) reluctantly thwarting the robbery of a general store, leaving the two criminals dead. But how, wonders the investigating detective (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Red […]
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The Wicked
As soon as its wonderful animated opening credits finish, however, The Wicked reveals its true nature as your below-average, everyday, unimaginative horror movie. It’s wicked, all right — just not in the word’s positive connotation. Although not to be confused with the Broadway smash Wicked, this flick also is about a witch (Cassie Keller, Hostel: Part […]
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Birdemic 2: The Resurrection
You asked for it, you got it. And you have no one to blame but yourself. Birdemic 2 is every bit as incompetent as its big bro, and then some: blurred images, sound dropouts, repeated establishing shots, public high-fives and leaden dialogue (“I don’t know about the movie business, but I know how to read”). […]
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Gangster Squad
Like that 1997 film, Gangster Squad shares a real-life character in mob king Mickey Cohen. While briefly in the former, he’s the gangster (played by Sean Penn, The Tree of Life) around whom the squad circles. (He’s also explored at length in a William Devane-hosted documentary on the Blu-ray.) That squad is fronted by war […]
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The Company You Keep
The Company You Keep, which opens Friday at AMC Quail Springs Mall 24, 2501 W. Memorial, is boomer meditation disguised as political drama. Directed by and starring Robert Redford, it pretends to be ambivalent about the 1960s counterculture, but the reverence of the treatment suggests otherwise. Last seen onscreen in 2007’s Lions for Lambs, Redford […]
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Upstream Color
Here’s what I think about Upstream Color nearly three weeks after seeing it: I’m unsure. I’ve not yet finished processing it. I can’t even explain the title. Screening Thursday through Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the self-distributed film marks the belated sophomore effort of writer/director/producer/actor/editor/ composer/cinematographer/camera operator Shane Carruth, who became an […]
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John Dies at the End
“My name is David Wong. I once saw a man’s kidneys grow tentacles,” intones our genial narrator and protagonist (the heretofore unknown Chase Williamson) who boasts psychic abilities that include communicating with the dead. He and his best bud, John (Rob Mayes, MTV’s The American Mall), operate as freelance ghostbusters when they’re not beer-drinking slackers. […]
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Trance
Based on a 2001 British made-for-TV movie, Trance casts X-Men: First Class member James McAvoy (presumably standing in for Ewan McGregor) as Simon, an art auctioneer who becomes a media hero for foiling the heist of an über-valuable painting, yet pays the price when the would-be thief, Franck (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan), comes looking for […]
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Dead in France
If more proof is needed — it’s not — the exploding heads, shoulder-stabbings and a good ol’ Wilhelm scream should do the trick later. Directed and co-written by Kris McManus, the UK film centers around Charles (Brian Levine, who co-wrote), a lonely hit man who’s not only a virgin, but never even kissed a woman. […]