The story of French tight-rope walker Philippe Petit’s mind-blowing stunt of walking between the World Trade Center towers had already been told in 2008’s Oscar winning documentary Man On Wire. The documentary is a masterpiece and one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, so the idea of a narrative version of the story had me a bit hesitant, as it is completely unnecessary. But, with technical master Robert Zemeckis behind the camera and the…
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Johnny Depp’s still got it. After a series of duds, Depp’s acting and film choices made us question his ability as an actor. But as James ‘Whitey’ Bulger in Scott Cooper’s gangster drama Black Mass, Depp gives one of his best performances to date and proves why he is one of the best actors in Hollywood. Told through the stories of Bulger’s henchmen, we start in 1975 with Bulger as a small-time, yet intimidating force…
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Johnny Depp was at one time one of the most sought out and best actors in Hollywood. He would consistently give great performances in good and sometimes great movies, which allowed the actor to earn back-to-back Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in 2003 and 2004, as well as a nomination in 2007. But lately, Depp has been on a streak of duds. With movies like Dark Shadows (2012), The Lone Ranger (2013), and Transcendence…
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With Scott Cooper’s Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as infamous gangster Whitey Bulger as he runs the streets of Boston in the 1970’s, coming out this Friday, let’s look back at some of the best movies set in Boston. 5- Fever Pitch (The Farrelly Brothers, 2005) I could have gone with better overall films like the rousing The Fighter (2010), the extremely entertaining The Boondock Saints (1999) or one of the great Paul Newman…
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We have seen movies about the quarter-life crises, like The Graduate (1967), Garden State (2004), and The Worlds End (2013). We have seen midlife-crises movies like 8 1/2 (1963), American Beauty (1999), and The Incredibles (2004). What we don’t see a lot of, however, is the three-quarter life crises movie. We rarely see movies about people in their elder years looking back at life and realizing, after seeing friends and loved ones die, that they haven’t fulfilled…
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Here’s a film history lesson for you. In 1999, director M. Night Shyamalan released his first monumental film The Sixth Sense. It was a massive success, both at the box office and with awards, and launched Shyamalan on to the Hollywood scene. That same year, a groundbreaking horror film titled The Blair Witch Project came out and brought the found footage horror genre into the mainstream. Since 1999 however, neither Shyamalan nor the found-footage horror genre…
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The fall festival circuit kicked off this last weekend with Venice and Telluride, which means only one thing: Oscar season. Every year, studios release films that they think are going to win the big prize and only one of those films can win come February. Through out these next four months, we will see some of the very best movies of the year. We will get the contenders, the pretenders, and a few surprises along…
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The Summer 2015 movie season has come to a close. It was a solid summer for movies, though the blockbusters disappointed a bit. But, some of the best movies of 2015 were released this summer and we were given some great performances. So with that, let’s look back at some of the best movies and performances of summer 2015. TOP 5 MOVIES 5- Inside Out – Welcome back Pixar! After a few mediocre films,…
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When comedic actors venture into drama, it can go one of two ways. They can be great, like Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love (2002) or Steve Carrell in Foxcatcher (2014). Or, they can be terrible, like Vince Vaughn in Psycho (1998) or Jim Carrey in The Number 23 (2007). So when I heard that Jason Segel of Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and How I Met Your Mother fame was stepping into the dramatic world as author…
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Straight Outta Compton, was another film I could not wait to see in 2015. In fact, it was number three on my Most Anticipated Films of 2015 behind only J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman (2014) follow-up, The Revenant. The trailers for the film were electric, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube were godfathering the film, the cast looked good, the director was established, and the music was…
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