HBO’s adaptation of George RR Martin’s fantasy series begins with an action-packed episode that introduces the huge cast. Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you haven’t watched the first episode of Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic. For the purposes of this blog we are also going to (hopefully) try and avoid book spoilers as well. It’s […]
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Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is the story of Pu Yi, the last imperial ruler of China, crowned at the age of three, sheltered inside the Forbidden City through a constant wave of revolts and violent takeovers before becoming in turns an exile, despot, and gardener who treaded lightly as Mao’s cultural revolution took over the nation […]
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I watched A Royal Night Out this weekend, which is another Queen Elizabeth II centric property currently streaming on Netflix (it was directed by Julian Jarrold who helmed two episodes of The Crown). It’s a not-that-great farcical romp that heavily fictionalizes the night Elizabeth and Margaret went out incognito to celebrate V-E Day among the common people. And […]
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Eschewing the typical thrills for a more wordy, philosophical take on the genre, this true-life gangster film backs its brawn with brains. Marco Bellochio’s historical crime epic The Traitor opens at a Cosa Nostra party in Sicily, senior criminals wandering lavish grounds, greeting each other with smiles that barely conceal rivalries, poison and murder behind their eyes. […]
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For fans and critics alike, Brokeback Mountain will forever be known as the “gay cowboy” movie. Almost invariably, the emphasis will be placed on the first half of that label–and understandably so: The love, briefly indulged and long inhibited, between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist is the narrative and emotional core of the film and of […]
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A portrait of a wounded solider serves as a rallying cry for veterans with PTSD in this sad and necessary documentary from Netflix. Here is an important and quietly harrowing documentary about the toll of war on both individuals and their families, released by Netflix and directed by New York Times journalists Catrin Einhorn and Leslye Davis. It […]
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CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls has several elements not in its favor – it’s old fashioned, vulgar, full of stereotypical characters and stars the single most annoying thing about that CGI-choked turd of a superhero flick, Thor. And yet, and yet – it works! Whether it’s the zeitgeist-tapping theme of finding humor in just getting by, the (usually) excellent scripts […]
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The Devil Wears Prada is two films in one: a caustic, energetic satire of the fashion world and a cautionary melodrama. The first works; the second doesn’t. Fortunately, the running time of the former doubles that of the latter, making The Devil Wears Prada more of a hit than a miss. In fact, even through some of the […]
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The Japanese animation director Isao Takahata has ever forged his own path over the course a half-century of work. A legendary perfectionist, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli (also the home of the great Hayao Miyazaki) has broken molds by, for example, creating an animated feature completely lacking in any “fantastic” element, the tender 1991 “Only Yesterday.” His […]
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New version of Jack London’s classic man-meets-dog adventure digitizes its canine hero—and loses something vital in the process Harrison Ford and a CGI-generated dog star in the latest screen adaptation of Jack London’s classic 1903 adventure novel. There have been movie adaptations of Jack London’s classic 1903 novel The Call of the Wild dating as far back […]
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