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Broadway The Hard Way: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, or the Psyche of an Actor
Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu had already been a known commodity in Hollywood circles for a while. His debut feature, Amores Perros, became a fan favorite, while his U.S. projects 21 Grams, Babel, and Biutiful landed him the star power of Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Sean Penn, or Javier Bardem. With his fifth movie, Birdman: […]
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The Monster Is Loose: Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan as a Parable of Putin’s Russia?
Russian cinema has always commanded international respect, even when things were frosty between the Soviet Union and the ‘West.’ The same still holds true for the modern arthouse movies from the country. Since the early 2000s, Andrei Zvyagintsev has become one of the more distinguished Russian directors. Particularly because of the recent crisis between his […]
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Spybreak: Matthew Vaughn Introduces Us to Kingsman: The Secret Service
Parodies of spy pictures – and the James Bond variation in particular – are a dime a dozen, with a fairly mixed bag of results. The cream of the crop may be the first two Austin Powers movies, International Man Of Mystery and The Spy Who Shagged Me. The low point is arguably a spoof […]
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Food, Glorious Food: Chef Jon Favreau Goes Back to the Roots
In Hollywood, Jon Favreau has become a household name as the man at the helm of the Iron Man trilogy. While he admittedly did a commendable job as the director of the first two movies from that franchise, he actually started out as an indie comedy filmmaker. Chef, a pet project of his, sees the […]
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Tyranny of Souls: James Franco and Seth Rogen Conduct The Interview
Despite the fact that most comedies involving Seth Rogen have generally been subject to debate, none of them has stirred as big a controversy as The Interview. A political comedy about real-life North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the film has been threatened by the Pyongyang regime for months, leading to Sony Pictures becoming the victim […]
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Fight the Good Fight: Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, or the End of an Era
Although fans and critics alike haven’t been completely satisfied with the results, the first two parts of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy have been among the biggest-grossing movies in recent years. One of the chief criticisms about the film series has always been that the director made a 300-page children’s book by J.R.R. Tolkien stretch […]
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Shock the Monkey: Matt Reeves Brings Us the Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
French novelist Pierre Boulle’s alternative universe in which apes rule the planet has long fascinated Hollywood. It spawned five movies between 1968 and 1974, a TV series, plus a remake in the early 2000s. Those releases have been a mixed bag. The original Planet Of The Apes starring Charlton Heston is universally considered a classic, […]
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Attacked by Monsters: The Return of the American Godzilla
Everybody loves Godzilla, the world-famous Japanese monster. At least most people seem to like it enough so that Hollywood has decided to bring it back to the silver screen after a 16-year hiatus once more. Not that it’s the least bit surprising, given the American film industry’s recent penchant for remakes, reboots, and sequels. The […]
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Sexual Healing: Charlotte Gainsbourg Enters the Dark Side in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: Vol. II
The second act of Nymphomaniac isn’t the first sequel shot by notorious Danish director Lars von Trier; that honor belongs to the horror movie Epidemic. Yet his latest two-part film carries the distinction that it comes with the first cinematic cliffhanger in his storied career – one that works almost like a coitus interruptus in […]
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Lust for Life: Charlotte Gainsbourg Becomes Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
Lars von Trier has never run away from controversy. The Danish enfant terrible has rather made a career out of embracing it – whether by being banned from the Cannes Film Festival for fascist remarks or by tackling the lives of mentally challenged people in Idiots. Whereas his 2011 feature, Melancholia starring Kirsten Dunst, was […]
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Slaves & Masters: The 86th Annual Academy Awards Coverage
It’s that time of the year again. Hollywood appreciates itself by handing out prestigious golden trophies. 2013 was full of surprises, both in a positive and in a negative way. This year’s class trots out its fair share of favorites, ranging from a satire on capitalism and stockbrokers (The Wolf Of Wall Street) and a […]