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Wally Benton, “The Fox”, master detective on radio is about to go, with his sweetheart, to Niagra Falls in order to get married. Unknown to him, his valet has told a newspaper reporter that Benton is ‘Constant Reader’, someone who has sent information to newspapers about murdered people and where to find their bodies, thus…
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The best thing about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the story’s author J.K. Rowling, whose imaginative conjuring of the world of Hogwart’s School of Witchery and Wizardry, with all of its fresh details and vivid characters, can only be compared with L. Frank Baum’s Oz or C.S. Lewis Narnia. There is a magic…
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Easily the best film of a very forgettable year in film, Chicago showed that the film musical still has some force in today’s Hollywood. Granted, Renee Zeilweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere cannot compare in talent to the likes of Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, and Gene Kelly; but the sheer visual energy and narrative play…
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Terry Zwigoff’s small film Ghost World is an excellent character study of alienation, fear and acceptance. Enid (Thora Birch), a recent high school grad doesn’t know what to do with her life: should she pursue an artistic career which she desires, yet does not want to work for? Or should she just enjoy her life…
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I read recently that Hollywood will be turning more toward human interest stories in the wake of the recent national terror, an acknowledgement that perhaps, just perhaps, the loss of human decency that has so marked Hollywood films over the last two decades might be having a negative effect on the culture. Imagine that. It…
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In recent yers, we hve seen mny moving films regrding the holocust. Steven Spielberg’s epic Schindter’s List, nd Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beutiful certinly mong the best of them. The Pinist, directed by Romn Polnski, cn tke plce mong them. Bsed on the true story of Polish rdio str Wldyslw Szpilmn. The Pinist is n…
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In the Maori culture, in New Zealand, there is a fable passed down of the boy prophet sent from God who rides on the back of a whale and leads his people to prosperity. Because of this fable, and a harsh paternalistic culture, boy babies are cherished and spoiled, while girl babies are not. When…
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The Learning Tree, 1969, semi-autographical, was written and directed by Gordon Parks, African-American. The film was among the first 25 films selected by the US Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 1989. Shot in rural Kansas in the 20’s, the film reflects Parks view growing up in a poor…
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Sometimes films are more interesting for what they represent than for what they are. Such was the case with Penny Marshall’s Riding In Cars with Boys, a film I reviewed in November, and such is the case now with Mark Pellington’s The Mothman Prophecies. I had fun searching the web for background material on this…
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Pop icons arise and fade according to the changing needs of the culture. It has been so since mass culture was birthed from the industrial fires of the late nineteenth century. Who was the “It Girl”? And why? Does anyone still know that if you wanted a quotable on any subject at the beginning of…
