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New Projects: ‘Dragon Tattoo’, ‘Pinocchio,’ and ‘Lost City of Z’

With Hollywood looking for franchises wherever it can find them, it seems mighty odd that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a highly successful novel with a film adaptation that had Rooney Mara, David Fincher, and James Friggin’ Bond attached, is not already swimming in sequels. The American version of Stieg Larsson’s novel wasn’t exactly …

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‘Need for Speed’ has fun car chases, but otherwise stalls

Aaron Paul stars as Tobey Marshall, a street racer framed for murder by Dino Brewster, Dominic Cooper’s rich racer villain. Rather than prove his innocence or reveal Brewster’s villainy, Tobey’s plan is to beat Brewster in an underground street race hosted by Michael Keaton’s Monarch, a retired racer who sadly does not live in a giant flying cocoon staffed by comical henchmen. With the police and Brewster’s bounty hunters in pursuit, Tobey must race across the country to the starting line.

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‘Need for Speed’ fairly lifeless when its characters aren’t racing for their lives

The new film Need for Speed does not deserve its lead actor, as he proves in a number of the dramatic moments. Even those audience members not familiar with Aaron Paul’s outstanding work on the AMC drama Breaking Bad would likely notice the straining-at-the-seams emotional style he brings to his character here, which is somewhat unexpected in a movie that essentially wants to kickstart its own The Fast and the Furious-esque franchise. Those movies, like Need for Speed, boast plenty of pedal-to-the-metal street racing, outrageous stunts, beautiful women, more racing, more stunts, and so on. Need for Speed, however, tries too hard to be a real, grounded story of revenge and hate, too often tippling over into melodrama.

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‘Pompeii’ Super Bowl Ad: Heavy On Volcano Carnage

There will be plenty of Hollywood studios competiting during the commercial breaks in tomorrow’s big game: Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, DreamWorks’ Need For Speed and Marvel’s Captain America: Winter Soldier are just a few of the action titles expected to be promoted. It isn’t clear if the Pompeii movie trailer will actually air during …

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