Annabelle: Creation is a prequel to Annabelle, which was a spinoff of The Conjuring, which was about the work of a pair of real-life paranormal investigators who really did once have a case involving a creepy doll. Now, at last, we can learn where the doll came from and how it got to be evil, […]
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Boy, that stunt/elaborate suicide attempt in the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster looks like a time and a half. I didn’t name which one because I want this article to work until at least 2030, maybe 2040. These days, Tom Cruise hasn’t just become synonymous with actors doing their own stunts, he’s made it a core […]
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When HBO announced its greenlighting of Confederate, a new series from the show-runners of Game of Thrones, the news was met with a barrage of outrage thanks to its provocative premise: It’s set in an alternate America where the Civil War ended in a stalemate, the North and South exist as separate enemy territories, and […]
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Detroit is about one of the more unpleasant things to have happened in a city where so many unpleasant things have happened that you can elicit a feeling of despair just by naming your movie after it. (“Wanna go see Detroit?” “No, that sounds depressing.”) Directed with well-placed outrage by Kathryn Bigelow from a screenplay by […]
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A personal sacrifice, when done right, can be an incredibly moving and effective part of a story. When done wrong, it can deflate the entire narrative. Often, the difference is between a true sacrifice and an unearned gimmick. For the sake of relevance, we’ll look at the sacrifices in Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s latest film, and […]
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“Hooray for Hollywood” will never sound right to me without the tin-can hiss of a VHS tape many times rewound. Growing up in the bleak hinterlands of northeast Ohio, I longed for what a 5-year-old considers Shangri-La – Central Florida. We made an almost-annual pilgrimage to Postcardland, to wave at Goofy, scream at Jaws and, […]
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War for the Planet of the Apes opens with scenes that are familiar to American viewers: soldiers silently work their way through the jungle, looking for the enemy. The camera angle switches and they pull up short: three Kong have been spotted on the hill. The soldiers’ helmets are scrawled with slogans for morale, and […]
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To the extent that there are James Bonds in the real world — dashing, highly skilled secret agents who can kill enemies with a rolled-up newspaper — surely by now there are also Jane Bonds. Yet Hollywood has offered few lady spies worthy of the comparison, leaving a void now filled by Atomic Blonde, a […]
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The final scene of 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut takes place in a toy store. As Dr. Bill Harford and his wife, Alice, let their young daughter run around to pick out Christmas presents, they discuss the future of their relationship. It’s been a harrowing two days for the pair, as Alice revealed her emotional infidelity […]
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Until 1968, the term “zombie” was used to refer to the Haitian folklore belief of reanimating a dead body through magical means. In 1972, films with a distinctly feminist point of view were rare, with the popularity of the “women’s lib” movement still in its infancy. In 1978, the vampire film was old news, as […]
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One of the music cues Donald Trump used during his presidential campaign was from the soundtrack for Air Force One, a movie in which America’s core institutions are taken over by a man whose only loyalty is to Russia. There’s also a point in the movie when the clear best choice is to overrule the president’s […]
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Going to the movies can be overwhelming these days, in whatever year this is. There are so many choices! This weekend alone there are three big films opening in wide release: Christopher Nolan’s World War II drama Dunkirk; Luc Besson’s space fantasy adventure Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets; and Malcolm D. Lee’s […]
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