Imagining an alternate history of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest cinematic treasure, “Hail, Caesar!” observes a day in the life of studio “fixer” Eddie Mannix. Though Mannix was a real executive for MGM during the 1950’s, the Coens offer a fictionalized version of his life. Set in the studio era, […]
George Clooney
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Film Review: Tomorrowland
It’s no secret that our world can be an overwhelmingly cynical place. As a society we’ve become so entrenched in negativity and pessimism that it’s easy to become disillusioned with where we’re headed. This mindset has extended even to the way we imagine our future: Once, we dreamt of a great big, beautiful tomorrow, but […]
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Film Review: “The Monuments Men”
A story too little known, the work of a group of some 300 men and women on a most unusual military mission in World War II provides the basis for George Clooney’s latest movie, “The Monuments Men.” The unit, a decidedly unmilitary bunch of museum curators, artists, art historians, and architects, worked in Europe, landing […]
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Lost in space
(PG-13), directed by Alfonso Cuaron Now playing The digital revolution, with all its computer-generated images, optical wizardry, and wondrous special effects, now drives far too many filmmakers to produce the bloated blockbusters that rattle the cineplexes summer after summer. Far too often, mechanism substitutes for the traditional content of plot, character, and meaning. Now and […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
FILM: Cinema paradiso
It used to be that there was a sharp, clear-cut line dividing the popcorn-movie trifles of summer from the highbrow, cerebral films of the fall movie season. But over the past several years, it’s become virtually impossible to distinguish between the two. Sure, there are still plenty of brainy prestige pictures to be found at […]
