High-Def Digest: The Bonus ViewMichelle Monaghan Archives - High-Def Digest: The Bonus View

‘Patriots Day’ Review: Docu-phony

Philip Brown — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 20:00:31 +0000

Peter Berg’s latest feature, ‘Patriots Day’, does enough right that its flaws are easy enough to ignore, if not excuse. It’s likely as good a mainstream film about the Boston Marathon bombing as was likely to be made. The subject matter was tricky and Berg at least manages to end on the right side of...

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‘Pixels’ Review: Lazy as @!#?@!

Philip Brown — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:00:50 +0000

Oh, Adam Sandler. How a generation used to love ye. There was a time when the Sand-man walked a tightrope between mainstream crowd-pleasing and anarchistic surrealism better than anyone. That time was the mid-1990s. Now he just might be the laziest billionaire in Hollywood. At this point, the only thing guaranteed to be worse than...

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‘Playing It Cool’ Review: Rom-Com Plays Too Safe

Philip Brown — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 18:00:12 +0000

The romantic comedy is a fickle beast for any filmmaker to master. The genre has a structure that must be maintained, and even though there are theoretically two ways for these worn-out stories to end, one will always win out: Happily Ever After. Even more of a p-in-the-a is the guy-centered rom-com. You know the...

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‘The Best of Me’ Review: The Worst of Nicholas Sparks

Philip Brown — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 19:00:09 +0000

Yet another Nicholas Sparks adaptation is here to present yet another ludicrously idealized version of romance that exists only in soft rock ballads and cheesy paperbacks. ‘The Best of Me’ is kind of like a comic book movie in terms of its brazen disregard for reality, only without any of the fun or entertainment value...

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‘True Detective’ 1.06 Recap: “Without Me, There Is No You”

Shannon Nutt — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 20:00:29 +0000

With the 1995 flashbacks seemingly wrapped up, ‘True Detective’ turns to the events of 2002 in this week’s episode, as viewers finally find out what led to a parting of the ways between detectives Martin Hart and Rust Cohle. The episode begins with Marty visiting the two young boys who were arrested for having sex...

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‘True Detective’ 1.03 Recap: “The World Needs Bad Men”

Shannon Nutt — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 17:00:29 +0000

As detectives Martin Hart and Rust Cohle get closer to catching their killer, Martin’s home life begins to unravel on him in the latest episode of ‘True Detective’, which continues to be the best-acted, most interesting television series HBO (or any other network) has aired for a long time. After leaving the burned-out church where...

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‘True Detective’ Pilot Recap: “A Man without a Family Can Be a Bad Thing”

Shannon Nutt — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 17:00:14 +0000

From its opening credits to the final shot, the first episode of ‘True Detective’ proves to be the best TV pilot I’ve seen in a long time. HBO’s new anthology series (which will only run eight episodes, then will change both cast and characters in Season 2) comes from the mind of Nic Pizzolatto, whose...

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SXSW Journal: ‘Source Code’

Drew Taylor — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:00:42 +0000

‘Source Code’ has a simple, intriguing sci-fi conceit: Through a clandestine, morally nebulous program, the government can plant the consciousness of a willing (or unwilling) solider into the body of someone who has recently died. (In this case, it’s the victim of a terrorist attack on a Chicago commuter train.) That soldier can then re-experience...

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