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‘Game Night’ Review: A.K.A. David Fincher’s Airplane!

Philip Brown — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 18:00:35 +0000

You know, it really didn’t occur to me until about halfway through ‘Game Night’ that David Fincher’s cinematic style had become iconic and imitated enough that it could be parodied. Yet here we are with a big Hollywood comedy that not only toys with a premise from a Fincher flick, but co-opts his style for...

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‘Doctor Strange’ Review: Marvel Embraces Stranger Things

Philip Brown — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 12:00:04 +0000

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands exponentially, Kevin Feige and the gang have reached a point where they need to start throwing wrenches into their works. The movies are feeling increasingly familiar. The heroes are increasingly similar. It’s all getting a bit samey. Thankfully, here’s comes ‘Doctor Strange’, a movie that might not reinvent the...

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‘The Little Prince’ Review: Imaginative Flights of Fancy

Philip Brown — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 16:00:06 +0000

Antoine de Saint-Expery’s ‘The Little Prince’ is one of those endlessly endearing and enduring classics of children’s literature more suited to the page than the screen. Surreal, imaginative, satirical and unconventionally structured, it doesn’t really suit the classical three act structure of family friendly cinematic storytelling. Sure, there was a delightfully wacko 1970s adaptation from...

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‘Every Thing Will Be Fine’ Review: No, It Won’t

Philip Brown — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:00:26 +0000

If nothing else, Wim Wenders deserves credit for his experimentations in contradiction at the center of ‘Every Thing Will Be Fine’. The film is an attempt to make a subdued melodrama. That’s tough enough to pull off (just ask Atom Egoyan 90% of the time). However, on top of that nearly insurmountable challenge, Wenders also...

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‘Spotlight’ Review: Delicately Powerful

Philip Brown — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 20:00:06 +0000

‘Spotlight’ is a film that moves viewers in small ways, yet it’s also the closest thing to an epic that writer/director Tom McCarthy will likely ever make. Previously, McCarthy focused on small and delicate character studies like ‘The Station Agent’, ‘The Visitor’ and ‘Win Win’. (Let’s just pretend that ‘The Cobbler’ doesn’t exist.). ‘Spotlight’ continues...

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TIFF Journal: ‘Spotlight’

Philip Brown — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 19:00:17 +0000

Based on the 2001 Pultizer Prize winning Boston Globe exposé of corruption within the Catholic Church, Tom McCarthy’s latest film ‘Spotlight’ is both a sprawling study of a disturbing issue and an intimately small human drama. Credit for that difficult mix goes to director and co-writer McCarthy, bouncing back from last year’s bizarre misstep ‘The...

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‘True Detective’ 2.08 Recap: “We Deserve a Better World”

Shannon Nutt — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 13:00:01 +0000

With no offense to those of you who actually enjoyed this second season, I sit here thanking the TV gods that ‘True Detective’ has finally wrapped up this story. No longer do I have to dread Sunday nights. No longer do I have to listen to that whiny lounge singer and her depressing music. Did...

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‘True Detective’ 2.07 Recap: “You See Me Managing an Applebee’s?”

Shannon Nutt — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 19:00:48 +0000

I think few would argue that the penultimate episode of ‘True Detective’ this season is one of the best. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I wouldn’t rank this week’s episode as a great hour of TV by any definition of the phrase, but as far as what we’ve been treated to this season, this entry is...

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‘True Detective’ 2.06 Recap: “A Mexican Standoff with Actual Mexicans”

Shannon Nutt — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:00:31 +0000

Despite the fact that the last couple of episodes have been much more coherent than what we got earlier in the season, I feel safe in saying now that Season 2 of ‘True Detective’ is a huge disappointment. Not just in comparison to Season 1, which was arguably a masterpiece of TV drama, but by...

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‘Southpaw’ Review: Yep, This Again

Philip Brown — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 19:00:12 +0000

You know what the world really doesn’t need? Another underdog boxing story. It’s too bad no one bothered to tell Antoine Fuqua and the rest of the people behind ‘Southpaw’, because they’ve gone ahead and remade ‘Rocky’ for the 167,000th time anyway. The only difference with this one is… ummm… to be honest, I don’t...

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‘True Detective’ 2.05 Recap: “Never Too Late to Start All Over Again”

Shannon Nutt — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 19:00:25 +0000

I won’t go as far as to call this week’s episode of ‘True Detective’ a good one – the season is far too much of a mess to make that proclamation – but I will say that in terms of storytelling, this is one of the most straightforward entries. In other words, I didn’t spend...

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‘True Detective’ 2.04 Recap: “Sometimes Your Worst Self Is Your Best Self”

Shannon Nutt — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:00:32 +0000

Hey everybody, it’s time to recap another episode of ‘True Detective’, the show that makes you pay close attention in order to unravel a mystery that you don’t give two hoots about. I’ve tried to give this series a chance, honestly I have. But at the midway point of this second season, I’m not any...

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