On the morning of Tuesday, January 24th, the nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were released. If you listened carefully, you likely heard the sound of mass disappointment. Not just regarding DRIVE, but for me, that was the big one. First of all, why 9 Best Picture nominees? Because they just HAD to get EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE […]
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Violence has been a part of human nature since the beginning of time, and while we like to think we have evolved beyond it, the fact of the matter is that it is still very much alive within all of us. Some of us are better at controlling it than others, but one simply needs to look at the media […]
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Remember when everyone loved THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT? Everyone said it was fantastic and amazing and such a beautiful film? Yeah? Well I didn’t care for it one bit. I thought it was way overrated and annoying. THE DESCENDANTS is that movie this year. Everybody loves it. Why? I couldn’t tell you. My best guess is that it has […]
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From the start, I have used this column to focus on moments, scenes, or sequences that tend to sum up the themes and subtext of any given film. They are moments that boil the entire film down to its very essence, encapsulating every idea the director wants to convey in a single short burst. But I realized that by doing […]
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Since the dawn of Man, we have used stories as a way of understanding both ourselves and the world around us. Many of the best stories are about journeys, both metaphorical and actual. Some follow a character or characters from one location to another, and others serve as a chronicle of the progression from one stage of a character’s life […]
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For most people, Christmas is a time for togetherness, a time to connect with friends and family, and bask in the warm glow of love, peace and friendship. For others, however, Christmas is just another painful reminder of how alone they truly are, and the holiday becomes a sort of existential nightmare for these poor folks who have nothing better […]
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Because if there’s one thing Hollywood is in need of it’s a little justice.
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It’s Christmas time in Hollis, Queens (and other non-Run-DMC approved locales), so in honor of this most beloved of holidays, Cinematic Soulmates will turn its attention to a couple of films that (at the time) put a fresh and fun spin on the most famous Christmas story of them all, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Both Scrooged (1988) and A […]
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People who did not grow up with the Muppets may have a hard time understanding why they mean so much to those of us who did. Hell, even some people who DID grow up with the Muppets may have a hard time understanding it, but for some of us, Jim Henson’s fabulous felt creations had a profound impact on us […]
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A word of warning before we begin: things are about to get schmaltzy here at Great Moments of Cinema, so if you’re one of those heartless cynical types who hates all that sappy emotional stuff, you might want to stop reading right now. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive right into this month’s column, in which I […]
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