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Welcome, one and all, to the Festival of Films blog! Here, we strive not just to review films but to discuss how the art of film reflects society and the broader human condition. Comments and spirited discussion are always strongly encouraged. Just remember to keep it respectful, of course. Here's lookin' at you, readers!
Category Archives: Crime
After scoring with Haywire and Magic Mike just last year, eclectic and prolific director Steven Soderbergh insists that Side Effects will be his last theatrical film before retirement. That’s too bad because his latest, an icy, craftily constructed pharmaceutical mystery-thriller, is … Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Drama, Features, Thriller
Tagged Catherine Zeta-Jones, Channing Tatum, Jeremy Kibler, Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Side Effects, Steven Soderbergh
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Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) was a family man. He married his first and only love, Deborah (Winona Ryder), and together they had two beautiful daughters, Anabel and Betsy (McKaley Miller and Megan Sherrill). They moved into a nice house in … Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Drama, Features
Tagged Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Nick DeNitto, Ray Liotta, Richie Kuklinski, The Iceman, Winona Ryder
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I never thought I’d say this, but Michael Bay just isn’t the same without big robots. Actually, that’s false. Bay is exactly the same without the robots. The problem is, that polished, decadent style from Transformers doesn’t work around human … Continue reading
Posted in Action, Comedy, Crime, Features
Tagged Anthony Mackie, Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Bay, Nick DeNitto, Pain & Gain, Tony Shalhoub
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Michael Bay isn’t exactly the poster boy for highbrow thinking fare, what with the mean-spirited, joylessly dumb-as-a-rock Bad Boys II and the increasingly brain-numbing Transformers franchise. With up to $200 million at his disposal, only to waste that large sum on pyrotechnics and … Continue reading
Posted in Action, Comedy, Crime, Features
Tagged Anthony Mackie, Dwayne Johnson, Jeremy Kibler, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Bay, Pain & Gain, Rebel Wilson, Tony Shalhoub
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Danny Boyle is a filmmaker whom we can always trust to give us something fresh and exciting in any genre or no genre at all. Ranging from 1996′s brutally real but energetic drug-addiction dark comedy Trainspotting to 2002′s grippingly scary zombie-movie … Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Features, Sci Fi, Thriller
Tagged 127 Hours, Anthony Dog Mantle, Danny Boyle, James McAvoy, Jeremy Kibler, Rosario Dawson, Slumdog Millionaire, Trance, Vincent Cassel
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If Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine was an intimate, heartbreakingly hopeless look at the slow disintegration of love, his latest film, The Place Beyond the Pines, is a sprawling, heady generational drama with tragedy and a glimmer of hope. Co-written by … Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Drama, Features
Tagged Blue Valentine, Bradley Cooper, Dane DeHaan, Derek Cianfrance, Emory Cohen, Eva Mendes, Jeremy Kibler, Ray Liotta, Ryan Gosling
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Spring Breakers is hard to articulate into words. That’s meant as the biggest compliment, not only to the film itself but to writer-director Harmony Korine (who wrote 1995′s controversial Kids at just age 19). A divisive, rule-breaking provocateur that many will refer … Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Drama, Features
Tagged Ashley Benson, Gummo, Harmony Korine, James Franco, Jeremy Kibler, Rachel Korine, Selena Gomez, Spring Breakers, Trash Humpers, Vanessa Hudgens
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As reported by our own Nick DeNitto earlier this week, cult television show Veronica Mars raised over two million dollars in less than twenty-four hours for a feature film follow-up. Sounds great and exciting and all but like all entertainment … Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Drama, Features
Tagged Bryan Fuller, Daniel Schaub, David Fincher, Pushing Daisies, Rob Thomas, The Fugitive, Veronica Mars, Wonderfall
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Under the shadows of fedoras, face like a gas canister and voice projecting rubber-on-gravel authority, Josh Brolin’s John O’Mara echoes strains of Fred MacMurray as doomed insurance man Neff in Double Indemnity. Neff may have bent the law where O’Mara … Continue reading
Posted in Action, Crime, Features
Tagged Anthony Mackie, Dion Beebe, Emma Stone, Gangster Squad, Giovanni Ribisi, Ivan Keta, Josh Brolin, Michael Pena, Robert Patrick, Ruben Fleischer, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn
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As hollow, Hollywood-slick entertainment, Gangster Squad is watchable, but it should be a lot better. Originally slated for a September release, pushed back in the wake of the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting and now opening in the garbage-dump month of … Continue reading
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