Gore Verbinski has directed three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and The Lone Ranger, plus The Ring, Rango, and Mousehunt, as well as under-seen gems The Mexican and The Weather Man. With such a varied resume that includes remakes and adaptations, it’s hard to pin down Verbinski’s own aesthetics. What is HE interested in? I’ve always […]
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There are certain movies that filled my teen years. Some of these, like Sixteen Candles and The Lost Boys, are staples that have been passed on to the next generation. But one seems forever stuck between “forgotten” and “cult classic.” Every two years or so, someone will bring it up and a bunch of people […]
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Is a bad comedy truly a bad comedy when you find yourself laughing a lot? I don’t mean pleasure from a movie’s awfulness, but laughing at crude jokes written for (and maybe by) 13-year-olds. Before you know it, there you are laughing at a baby in a cloud of cocaine, or two dumb guys watching […]
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When we aren’t using up government resources to try and rescue him from the far reaches of outer space, Matt Damon is capable of a whole lot of things. We’ve seen him rob casinos, fall in love with Liberace, and run really fast from a wildly shaking camera. He’s so good that one of his […]
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With February 14 once again upon us and Fifty Shades Darker siphoning an obscene amount of money out of the pockets of couples in the market for something “romantic,” it’s useful to be reminded that sometimes Hollywood presents audiences with an alternative to the mushy, lovey-dovey stuff. This year brought with it the second chapter of […]
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In comedy, reputation is everything and nothing. It’s something to be valued, earned as it is through endless nights of stand-up and well-crafted jokes, but also something to be surrendered at a moment’s notice for the simple pleasure of a laugh. Ricky Gervais has a more complex relationship with the idea of reputation than many […]
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In a way, it’s a little ironic: While DC/Warner Bros. struggles to deliver a successful Batman film to a public that’s still (for the time being, anyway) hungry for superhero flicks, in slips The LEGO Batman Movie with an outwardly silly riff on the Bruce Wayne mythos that explores the brooding hero’s psyche with more […]
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When last we saw John Wick, at the end of his out-of-nowhere 2014 cult hit, the grudgingly reactivated assassin had avenged, with extreme prejudice, the murder of his dog and the theft of his car and was ready to enjoy retirement again. Alas, it was not to be. There were too many unresolved issues — […]
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The sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey opens this weekend, and while you’d think Fifty Shades Darker than grey would be black it’s actually just the same white couple pretending to be kinky. They have their fans, and I’ll admit there are laughs to be found, but the movies aren’t nearly as sexy as they […]
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The loss of a creative voice often prompts a revisiting of their works. In January, William Peter Blatty, best known as author of The Exorcist, passed away. And while The Exorcist is certainly a film worthy of endless discussion, my favorite Blatty work is 1980’s The Ninth Configuration. Written and directed by Blatty himself and […]
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The first “audio commentary track” was recorded for the Criterion laserdisc of King Kong, released in December 1989. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” Criterion’s track began. “I’m Ronald Haver.” (The late Haver was a film historian and director of film programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.) “I’m here to do something which we feel […]
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The Ring was my favorite of the remakes of Asian horror films in the early aughts. I’m on the record; I’m a Ring-leader. When Samara the stringy-haired wraith comes out of the TV at the end, there’s no convincing me that she can’t emerge from the movie screen, too. That’s just science. Having poisoned the ghost-well […]
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