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Dispatch from the LA Film Fest 2015: ‘Puerto Ricans in Paris’

A particularly hard type of film about which to write critically is the comedy of modest ambition that achieves its aim with an acceptable amount of appeal in playing, gags, plot, and outlook, but little more. One does not wish to criticize for not being more (not least as so many are so less), nor …

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‘Top Five’ delivers raunchy, heartfelt laughs

Top Five Written & Directed by Chris Rock USA, 2014   Chris Rock’s new tour de force, Top Five, is so cleverly written that you don’t even realize it’s a romantic-comedy until the deed is nearly done.  By that point, even the coldest, most cynical man is powerless to resist its charms.  Smart, nasty and …

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‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For’ delivers the sleaze to please

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For Written by Frank Miller Directed by Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller USA, 2014   When Sin City exploded into theaters in 2005, we had never seen anything like it.  It was a resounding declaration that digital filmmaking had finally arrived.  The new Robert Rodriquez-Frank Miller collaboration, Sin City: …

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‘Trance’ an overheated, ridiculous yet never dull psychological thriller

Danny Boyle has yet to make a dull movie, but that appears to be the only consistency he’s concerned with. His new film Trance is as amped up, jittery, and stylistically charged as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and the rest of his filmography, but the story holds up to barely the most minor scrutiny. Trance’s inconsistencies go well beyond its script, all the way down to the various flourishes Boyle employs throughout the film, tossing them out as he deems them useless.

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Danny Boyle’s ‘Trance’ is an oppressively shallow exercise

Trance Written by John Hodge and Joe Ahearne Directed by Danny Boyle UK, 2013 Danny Boyle’s return to the thriller genre is also a return to the three character piece nature of his debut feature Shallow Grave, albeit placed within the confines of a heist film set mostly within the human mind. This is bound …

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‘Sin City’ impresses by commiting all imaginable sins

Sin City Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller Written by Frank Miller U.S.A, 2005 Every Friday during the month of June, the Friday Film Noir column will be taking a slightly offbeat look at noir in film. More specifically, films that embrace noir elements in their  own fashion yet are not from the traditionally …

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