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Insidious (2011): C
Initially unsettling and then increasingly ridiculous, Insidious follows a well-worn template while attempting to maximize the benefits of jump scares. Saw masterminds James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s tale concentrates on the seemingly happy Lambert family, who move into a new suburban house and promptly begin noticing strange occurrences explainable only by supernatural means, be it…
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Minority Report (2002): B+
Not simply Steven Spielberg’s most prescient sci-fi work but also one of his finest, Minority Report may not fully investigate the moral questions raised by its tale (based on a Philip K. Dick short story), but it makes up for such deficiencies with muscular rollercoaster thrills and a poignant portrait of man’s capacity for free…
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Army of Darkness (1992): C+
Replacing horror with uninhibited monster movie jokiness, Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness picks up where Evil Dead II left off, with chainsaw-handed hero Ash (Bruce Campbell) transported via an unholy portal to 1300 A.D., where he’s forced to find the Necronomican (i.e. the Book of the Dead) to return home, all while fighting an army…
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The Way Back (2010): B
A tale of man’s capacity to endure that’s layered with Christian undercurrents, The Way Back tells the astounding true-life story of three prisoners who in 1940 broke out of a Siberian gulag and journeyed four-thousand miles by foot across the snowy wilderness, arid desert and Himalayan mountains to freedom in India. Peter Weir’s first film…
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The Fourth Kind (2010): C-
“I’m actress Milla Jovovich,” states Milla Jovovich while explaining, during an awfully awkward prologue, the conceit of The Fourth Kind, a film in which Jovovich and fellow actors reenact supposedly real footage involving a string of possible alien abductions in Nome, Alaska in 2000. That authentic video is largely culled from the therapy sessions of…
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Megamind (2010): B
Turning a traditional Superman-esque scenario on its enormous noggin, DreamWorks’ animated Megamind proves a revisionist superhero saga rooted in questions of free will. In Metro City, narcissistic do-gooder Metro Man (Brad Pitt) does constant battle with his insecure nemesis Megamind (Will Ferrell), a giant blue-headed villain whose nefarious motivations – as spied in an intro…
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Knight and Day (2010): C
Knight and Day attempts to walk a delicate tightrope, simultaneously parodying and indulging in outrageous super-spy action, and fails in both endeavors. James Mangold’s big-budget snooze features Tom Cruise as Roy Miller, a rogue secret agent man who may also be insane. This possibility greatly disturbs June Havens (Cameron Diaz), the classic car-restoring mechanic (ha!)…
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And Soon the Darkness (1970): C+
A mood of open-air claustrophobia is the prime calling card of And Soon the Darkness, Robert Fuest’s thriller about the nasty predicament two pretty girls find themselves in while bicycling on holiday through the French countryside. Set along roads that cut through vast fields and by deep forests, the film’s empty spaces are confining and…
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True Grit (1969): C+
John Wayne won an Oscar for his portrayal of boozy, one-eyed Federal Marshall Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, a performance that plays off the Duke’s legendary on-screen persona with a goofiness that’s also found throughout the rest of Henry Hathaway’s Western. Based on Charles Portis’ novel, Hathaway’s film concerns 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby, looking…
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Biutiful (2010): C
Biutiful’s title is misspelled in part to call attention to itself, in a manner not unlike the direction of helmer Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Despite having severed ties with longtime screenwriting partner Guillermo Arriaga, the 21 Grams and Babel auteur evolves only ever-so-slightly with his latest, which is told in chronological rather than fractured order but…
