It’s sort of a holiday-themed Avengers in the decently charming fantasy adventure film Rise of the Guardians. When evil boogieman Pitch Black threatens the magical beliefs of children, the moon assembles five legendary figures to stand against him. There’s the flibbertigibbet Tooth Fairy, the mute Sandman, an Australian Easter Bunny, a bombastic Russian Santa Claus […]
Film + TV
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Red Dawn
The horrors of combat are all too real when brave North Korean heroes fend off savage insurgents in what is I assume a documentary entitled Red Dawn. Initially expecting to be greeted as liberators upon occupying American soil and freeing its people from their failed capitalist exploitation, the North Korean army (altered in post from […]
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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Get over yourself. The franchise that defined vampires for a generation (deal with it) and gave insufferable blowhards something to complain about comes to a close; bowing out with this astonishingly shallow entry that manages to squeeze a satisfactory amount of bonkers from its wispy plot. To stop the dark lord Michael Sheen, who seeks […]
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The Sessions
Sex is tricky enough when you spend your days in an iron lung, but love is a whole other battlefield. Based on the magazine article by poet and polio survivor Mark O’Brien, The Sessions is a simple and disarmingly funny tale of a paralyzed man attempting to lose his virginity through the services of a […]
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Lincoln
While a two-and-a-half-hour political movie could be painfully slow, director Steven Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner recreate Abraham Lincoln’s final term as US president in a surprisingly engaging way. As Lincoln fights to pass the 14th Amendment, in order to give black Americans equality before the law, in a civil war-torn country, he encounters numerous […]
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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Steve Carell is now a bona fide movie star, but unless Amy Ryan is around, he is no dashing romantic lead. Get Smart paired him with Anne Hathaway, two decades apart, and the otherwise sharp Seeking a Friend for the End of the World makes the same mistake with Keira Knightley, who’s 23 years younger. […]
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Skyfall
James Bond is back doing what he does best—gloomy introspection with nihilistic indifference. This time, the British icon is vexed by loopy psychopath Javier Bardem who stages a staggeringly complicated revenge scheme against ex-boss M (Judi Dench). That all those machinations culminate in shoot-at-stuff-a-lot is one of the reasons Skyfall is so unwittingly entertaining. Not […]
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Wreck-It Ralph
An existential crisis finds its home in a video arcade. After 30 years of playing the bad guy to Fix-It Felix (voiced by Jack McBrayer), the oversized Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) abandons ship and ventures to other games in the hopes of a better life. He stumbles into Sugar Rush, a candy land kart […]
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Midnight’s Children
It’s a lofty task to create a movie from a novel, and Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children, even at two and a half hours, doesn’t feel complete, despite novelist Salman Rushdie penning the screenplay himself. Two boys born on at midnight on the eve of India’s independence are switched at birth: one poor, the other rich. […]
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The Man with the Iron Fists
The Man with the Iron Fists is a B-movie to its core—the lovechild of kung fu and grindhouse, with a smattering of Western flare. And it’s no wonder—directed and co-written by RZA (of The Wu-Tang Clan), produced by Eli Roth (Grindhouse), and presented by Quentin Tarantino himself, this movie reeks of violence, greed, sex and […]
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Flight
Anyone already afraid of flying won’t be helped by the opening scenes of Flight, when disaster strikes mid-air and a harrowing crash soon follows. That anyone at all survives is attributed to the talents of veteran pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), but the hero worship turns to suspicion as questions about Whitaker’s sobriety begin popping […]
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Cloud Atlas
Everything is connected, or maybe not, but it all looks pretty and Tom Hanks is there in the massive Cloud Atlas. Adapted from the novel by David Mitchell, writers and directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer aren’t shy on ambition in realizing their $102 million movie. A rotating repertoire of players, including famous […]
