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The Price of Redemption: Matthew McConaughey Goes the Distance in Dallas...
Matthew McConaughey as Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club. Matthew McConaughey, a mumbling Hollywood-honed Texas actor with a severely limited range whom I have never much liked on the screen, goes the...
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Speak to Me of Love: Michael Caine Shines in Paris-Set Romance Last Love
Michael Caine and Clémence Poésy in Last Love. When in doubt, call Michael Caine. Thanks to one of his most compelling performances in years, a routine May-December romance called Last Love seems only...
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A Fine Romance: John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey Are the Real Deal
John Pizzarelli, left, and Jessica Molaskey hold court at Café Carlyle through Nov. 23. (Photo by Stephen Sorokoff) Partners on and off the stage, sublime jazz guitarist and cello-mellow crooner John...
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In the Shadow of Greatness: Newest Take on Dickens Classic Is No Match for...
Helena Bonham-Carter as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Only a fool would try to improve on David Lean’s Great Expectations. The Dickens classic has been remade and recycled numerous times, but...
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Love and Squalor: Saoirse Ronan Is a Luminous Presence in an Otherwise Gloomy...
Saoirse Ronan in How I Live Now. How I Live Now, a futuristic coming-of-age thriller directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), stars the inventive, always-astonishing 19-year-old Irish...
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Travels With Charlie: Fredrik Bond’s Disorienting Debut Feature Makes No Sense
Shia LaBeouf in Charlie Countryman. I don’t know anything about how to keep an acting career going in the movies, but I guess you have to take all kinds of senseless roles in stinkers like Charlie...
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Buzz Kill: Sunlight Jr. Is the Downer in Your Eggnog
Matt Dillon and Naomi Watts in Sunlight Jr. Movies about hopeless losers living below the poverty level don’t pack much entertainment value for the holiday season, and despite the presence of Naomi...
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American Spirit: Woe Be the Fool Who Misses Alexander Payne’s Nebraska
Bruce Dern in Nebraska. In today’s frenzied atmosphere of zombies, vampires and people floating aimlessly through outer space, the deceptive simplicity of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, the measured pace...
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Vaudeville, Revamped: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder Is a Delicious...
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. How lucky is Jefferson Mays? In the vigorously homicidal new Broadway musical farce A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at the Walter Kerr Theater, he is the...
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Seek and Ye Shall Find: Philomena Is The Most Powerful Movie of the Year
Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in Philomena. Philomena is not only my favorite film of 2013, but one of the most eloquent, powerful and perfect movies I have ever seen. A focused and triumphant...
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Up In Smoke: Catching Fire, Second Installment in Hunger Games Trilogy, Is a...
Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Excessive, over-produced, obscenely over-budgeted and utterly pointless, this second installment in the overrated trilogy of books by Suzanne...
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Family Feud: Madoff-Inspired Drama Is a Fine Idea but Never Takes Shape
Blythe Danner, left, and Sarah Jessica Parker in Amanda Peet's new play, The Commons of Pensacola. First, the good news: The Commons of Pensacola, a new play by movie actress Amanda Peet, is only 80...
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Homefront Has Been Done Dozens of Times Before
Jason Statham and Izabela Vidovic in Homefront. Adding to the avalanche of violence coming to a screen near you for the holiday season is Homefront, another eye-averting cornucopia of bloodshed and...
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Oldboy Is Oldhat
Josh Brolin in Oldboy. Garbage never smells good, but you won’t find a landfill anywhere more offensive than Spike Lee’s stupid remake of Oldboy, the 2003 horror flick from South Korea by Park...
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Two’s a Crowd: Billy Stritch and Jim Caruso Cover the Waterfront
Billy Stritch, at right, with Jim Caruso at the Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar. (Photo by Stephen Sorokoff) Who says there’s nothing to do in New York on a cold Sunday night? Every Sunday in December, when...
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Night Train to Nowhere: Bille August’s Latest Is a Snoozer
Night Train to Lisbon. It never ceases to amaze me how many people manage to waste money producing movies so bland, empty and pretentious that nobody will ever see them. Don’t they read the scripts...
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Out of the Furnace Packs a Predictable Punch
Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace. More bitter, bleak lives of American mill workers without a compass and no place to go if they had one are showcased in the pessimistic drama Out of the Furnace....
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A Career Cut Short: Fast and Furious Star Paul Walker Died in a Tragic Car...
Paul Walker in Hours. Talk about bad timing. In the wake of the disturbing news about the death of actor Paul Walker in a flaming Porsche (shades of James Dean!), along comes the posthumous release of...
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Con Artist: Steve Tyrell’s Rat Pack Smarm Is a Natural Emetic
Steve Tyrell grunts and shouts at the Carlyle. (Photo by Stephen Sorokoff) Steve Tyrell is the luckiest man in cabaret. With so many great artists out of work, he has played 12 gigs at the chic,...
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Grand Illusion: American Hustle Is an Essay on the Brilliance of Corruption
Left to right: Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle. We’re all con artists, see. Everyone is conning someone else in order to survive....
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