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‘Run All Night’ is an enjoyable jog through familiar territory

Middle-aged men with a particular skillset have found their patron saint in Liam Neeson. Luckily, a distinctive visual style and some added character detailing keep Run All Night running smoother than most of its sluggish brethren. There’s certainly nothing new here, but this slick little film dispenses its thrills and kills with surprising effectiveness.

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‘The Judge’ is guilty of being dull

The Judge is an actor’s showcase that gets lost in the weeds of tired family dynamics and clunky subplots. There are moments when Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall are allowed to take their characters into more dangerous places, but mostly they’re just constrained by an uninteresting story. The result is a film that packs no emotional wallop and builds to a conclusion that is neither surprising nor satisfying.

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Kubrick’s Films and Their Relationship to Violence in Society

Over the course of his career, legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick made movies in various genres tackling a number of ideas. Entirely separate films have been made simply to document the various interpretations of just one of his films, and his attention to detail has been well-documented. Thus, a look at the themes Kubrick presents in …

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‘Full Metal Jacket’ and the U.S. Marine Ideology

“Good-bye, my sweetheart. Hello, Vietnam.” — Johnny Wright “Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?” – Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket was Stanley Kubrick’s eleventh film (twelfth, if you count Spartacus) and his last to depict war and the military. Kubrick dealt with the military in Fear and Desire, Paths of …

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Protecting Their Precious Bodily Fluids: Male Impotence in Kubrick’s Filmography

It’s both perfectly fitting and a darkly wry punchline that the last word in Stanley Kubrick’s last film is “fuck,” utilized in its most literal definition. The word is spoken, in both direct and slightly imploring fashion, by Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman) to her husband Bill (Tom Cruise) at the end of the still slightly …

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The Groundbreaking Brilliance of Homicide: Life on the Street

When Homicide: Life on the Street premiered in January 1993 after the Super Bowl, it leaped into a different world than the standard hour-long dramas. There were a few exceptions like Hill Street Blues that provided an inspiration, but Creators Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana were entering uncharted territory. The cast lacks the typical pretty …

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‘Sinister’ a disturbing, spooky film with a solid lead performance

Sinister Directed by Scott Derrickson Written by Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill USA, 2012 Voyeurism is at the heart of most great horror films, a virus pervading protagonists like Norman Bates in Psycho or Mark Lewis in Peeping Tom. The basic idea of featuring characters who watch ghastly acts onscreen serves to mock, condemn, …

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Fantasia 2012: Jennifer Lynch has ‘Chained’ the Serial Killer Monster

Chained Written by Jennifer Lynch, based on a screenplay by Damian O’Donnell Directed by Jennifer Lynch USA 2012 Fantasia imdb “I shall call you… Rabbit,” is the most chilling line of any film this year. Spoken slowly but deliberately with a slight lisp and a faint Germanic accent by Vincent D’Onofrio, the voice alone places Bob somewhere between Hans Beckert and Jeffrey …

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