Bill Murray as Vincent and Jaeden Lieberher Oliver in St. Vincent. PHOTO COURTESY THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY I’ve never been a member of the cult of Murray – Bill, that is. I know he has a very devoted following that thinks the sun rises and sets on his every move, marveling at the masterful way he […]
Chuck Koplinski
Posted inArts & Culture
Ouija board, movie lack mystery
Douglas Smith, Ana Coto and Olivia Cooke in Ouija. It isn’t that Ouija, the latest property to hit the screen from Hasbro Toys after G.I. Joe and Transformers, is necessarily a bad movie; it’s simply late to the party. After the recent success of Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Sinister, the whole “haunted house combined with […]
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John Wick: A bloody, cathartic ride
Keanu Reeves as the title character in John Wick. PHOTO COURTESY Summit Entertainment Make no mistake, there’s little in the way of originality where David Leitch and Chad Stahelski’s John Wick is concerned. It’s a simple story you know well – a man of violence, in an attempt to put his past behind him, settles […]
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Fury gets job done, accomplishes little else
Shia LaBeouf, Xavier Samuel, Brad Pitt and Michael Pena in Fury. PHOTO COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES Perhaps my expectations for David Ayer’s Fury were a bit too high. Primed by the presence of a strong cast, the strength of the director’s previous film – the tough cop procedural End of Watch – and the realistic aesthetic […]
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Questions of identity propel Gone Girl
Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne and Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne in Gone Girl. PHOTO COURTESY 20TH CENTURY FOX Having purposely kept myself in the dark regarding the central conceit at the core of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel Gone Girl, I approached David Fincher’s adaptation of it ready to be knocked back on my heels. […]
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Washington invaluable in slick Equalizer
Denzel Washington as Robert McCall in The Equalizer. PHOTO COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES There’s no escaping the “been-there-done-that” feel that hangs over the new Denzel Washington actioner The Equalizer. Based ever so loosely on the Edward Woodward television series from the 80s, you can’t help but draw connections between this, Washington’s own Man on Fire and […]
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Neeson walks strong Among the Tombstones
Liam Neeson as Matt Scudder in A Walk Among the Tombstones. PHOTO COURTESY UNIVERSAL PICTURES In the last decade, Liam Neeson has seemingly taken every script that’s come his way. He’s been forthcoming in his reasoning as, since the tragic death of his wife Natasha Richardson, he’s freely admitted that the best way for him […]
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Drop fails to live up to Hardy’s fine work
James Gandolfini stars as Cousin Marv and Tom Hardy stars as Bob Saginowski in Fox Searchlight Pictures’ The Drop. Michael Roskam’s The Drop is a movie I wanted to like more than I did. I kept looking among the many positive things in the film for just one more great moment, one more clever turn […]
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Boyhood: Subtle, powerful meditation on life
Lorelei Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood. PHOTO COURTESY IFC FILMS On the surface, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood seems to be nothing more than a gimmick. Filmed for a week to 10 days over the course of 12 summers using the same cast, the movie serves not only as a time capsule of the […]
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Brosnan shines in November Man
Pierce Brosnan as Peter Devereaux in The November Man. Could the widespread usage and acceptance of Viagra be somehow linked to the spate of action films with heroes over 60 years old in the last decade? Now that sexual virility is attainable at any age, is it such a leap to assume that movie audiences […]
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Dame: dynamic yet tired
Mickey Rourke as Marv in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. PHOTO COUTRESY Dimension Films There’s no question that Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is a visually stunning piece of work, the sort of film DVDs were made for – you’ll find yourself wanting to freeze-frame multiple […]
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Magic in the Moonlight
Emma Stone and Colin Firth in Magic in the Moonlight While Magic in the Moonlight doesn’t rank as one of Woody Allen’s finer efforts, it certainly isn’t without its charms. Of course, one should keep in mind that the writer/director’s lesser films are better than the best that most modern filmmakers can come up with, […]
