Review: Blackhat

When you think of director Michael Mann, you think of gritty films with raw grainy visuals that not only ooze machismo and bravado, but also pay a healthy amount of respect for each film’s respective cityscapes.   Heat, The Insider, Ali, Collateral, Miami Vice – each boasts Mann’s signature film making style, and - with the exception to Miami Vice - each of these films is quite good.  From cops-and-robbers, to tobacco industry whistle...

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Review: Jurassic World

There’s no denying that the original Jurassic Park was a cinematic game-changer - a shining of example of who Steven Spielberg once was as a director back when he was still Steven Spielberg.  In the original Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs and the musical score were very much the stars, much more so than the cast, which featured solid but not spectacular leads in Sam Neil and Laura Dern, and the finished product was a grand epic that would define...

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Review: Entourage

Entourage is one of those movies that the viewer knows is going to be bad even before he or she sits down in their seat.  It’s also the rare occasion where the viewer is okay with that, because the act of paying for a ticket to go watch a movie that is an extension of a TV show that ended four years ago (but actually wasn’t that good for its last three years), is an act of acquiescence.  That’s not a judgment.  It’s a statement...

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Review: San Andreas

Anything you (or anyone else) can do, the Rock can do better.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at his resume and you will find that it is littered with projects that have re-imagined and re-engineered other films simply by turning up the volume on the action and infusing Johnson's larger than life screen presence into the plot.  The results at the box office have been nothing short of impressive.  They don’t - after all - half-jokingly...

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Review: Ex Machina

Conceptually speaking, A.I. can be a scary thing.  No, I’m not talking about Allen Iverson – though the former NBA player’s crossover could be frightening for a retreating defender.  What I’m talking about is artificial intelligence – a term that can mean very different things depending on the layperson.  To some, it’s what makes their video games really difficult to beat; and to others it’s a fantastical concept born from the...

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Review: Pitch Perfect 2 (The Pitch is Back!)

The Pitch is Back. And it will be back for a third installment.  You can carve that in stone after we learned this weekend that the only thing that can beat Mad Max is the Bellas of Barden University to the tune of $70M at the domestic box office (to Mad Max: Fury Road’s $44M).  Between Pitch Perfect 2 and Furious 7, it’s been a good year at the cinema for Universal and all this success no doubt has left their deep pocketed but suddenly...

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