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| PAST PRESENT & FUTURE |
And the worst movie ever Past, Present, and Future is (drumrolls please), Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton in Serious Moonlight.
Please suffer through trailer by clicking here.
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| Past... |
Five hundred and ninety-eight movies played somewhere in the United States in 2011. Nine of the top ten grossing films were sequels earning almost four billion dollars worldwide: Harry Potter 8, Transformers 3, Twilight Saga 3, Hangover 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Fast Five, Cars 2, Mission Impossible 4, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes 7, 8, or 9 (I'm not sure which).
Only the non-sequel Thor cracked the top ten at number nine, and Thor played like a sequel to all the other Avenger character movies.
The 598th worst grossing film in 2011 was Redneck Carnage which opened on October 29th at one theater and earned $325. To see the trailer, please click here. |
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| LIMITED ENGAGEMENT OF BEN HUR |
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| Present... |
 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Swedish bestseller. Swedish movie. American remake. Immerse yourself in these three versions of Lisbeth Salander's grisly adventures and enjoy the mystery from three different points of view. In the current American rendition I particularly like the added elevator encounter between Lisbeth and her guardian. And I am fascinated by both movies having a car crash with a fire while the book has a simple crash into a truck. |
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 War Horse - Steven Spielberg is a big canvas filmmaker. War Horse is no exception. The best scene is when an English soldier and German soldier meet between the trenches to minister to the injured horse, a riff on the Christmas Day 1914 true event where English and German soldiers came out into No Man's Land and played soccer and sang Christmas carols before returning to their repective trenches and continuing their annihilation of each other the next day. |
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 Spielberg's Golden Globe winning animated Adventures of Tin-Tin 3D is also a big canvas movie, best described as a Young Indiana Jones using motion capture technology. |
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 Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Sequels are safe bets for the movie studios and the movie customers. Whether good or bad, your anticipation quotient determines whether you want to pay $17.50 for IMAX, $13 for Cinemark XD (always my choice), $10.50 for a non-premium screen, or $8 in the afternoon. Luckily, MI4 is a fun sequel with a couple of great scenes, one in the Kremlin, and one in Dubai. Best of all are the terrific credits using the Mission Impossible theme song. Listen to the classic original TV theme song by clicking here. |
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 Iron Lady - Golden Globe winner Meryl Streep transforms herself into Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, while in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Gary Oldman confidently portrays John LeCarre's George Smiley. |
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 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - The British Academy of Film and Television Arts 2012 award nominations include eleven for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and only four for Iron Lady. Obviously in Great Britain they prefer the methodical meanderings of George Smiley over the American interpretation of their Reaganesque Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As for me, I believe Streep's thespian activity trumps Oldman's Brechtian passivity. |
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 Contraband - Mark Wahlberg, with his action charisma, continues to turn convoluted scripts, movie cliches, and impossible to succeed scenarios into B-action movies worthy of their place in American cinema history. |
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| Star Wars Phantom Menance 3D in XD - February 9 |
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| Future... |
Red Tails/Haywire/Artist - Opening this Friday are three non- sequels with high class pedigrees. For more than twenty years George Lucas has been giving interviews about his Tuskegee airmen movie that someday he was going to film. That day is here. |
 Red Tail is the true story of the World War II all black fighter escorts who sacrificed themselves for the safety of the heavy bomber pilots. The incredibly able and decorated Tuskegee airmen were for a long time recognized as the only fighter squad that never lost a bomber to enemy fire. That embellishment has been corrected without diminishing their wartime feats one bit. Everyone should go to this movie. |
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 Haywire, what looks to be an action flick full of deceit and devastation, is Ocean's 11, 12, and 13's filmmaker Steven Soderbergh's swan song to the movie business. Loved by critics more for his first film "Sex Lies and Videotape" than any of his string of Hollywood blockbusters, Soderbergh has stated that he is finished with movies, and wants to become a painter. Though Soderbergh will more than likely make a comeback sometime in the future with Ocean's 14, with nothing to lose, his Haywire will aim for the action audience's jugular. |
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 Golden Globe winner The Artist, a modern day, black and white, silent film valentine to the movies, is not for everyone. But for those of you willing to take a chance, The Artist may turn out to be a movie experience you will never forget. Check out the trailer by clicking here. |
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 Ben Hur in XD - After fifty-two years, last December 8th I again watched Charlton Heston in William Wyler's most honored of all time Academy Award winning movie in a movie theater (our XD theater) which brought the movie back to audiences exactly as it played in 1959. This presentation will only take place in Cinemark South Point's XD theater, and will only play twice a day for eight days February 2 - 9. To see the incredible chariot sequence from the original 1925 Ben Hur, please click here. |
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 Star Wars Phantom Menace 3D in XD - This Star Wars prequel that introduced Jar Jar Binks to an unsuspecting world is being re-released in converted 3D. But unlike so many current conversions, this conversion is from digital to digital, and has been supervised totally and completely by George Lucas. This is a 3D must see in our XD theater. It opens in a limited run on February 10. |
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 John Carter - The creator of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, wrote another series of novels around a Virginian reincarnated on Mars named John Carter. For whatever reason movie companies have ignored the books except for the low budget Princess of Mars starring porn star Traci Lords. Now comes Disney on March 9 with the big budget John Carter (another XD must see). Though I will reserve judgement until I have seen the film, this is the movie I want to see most this year. To enjoy the Traci Lords Princess of Mars trailer please click here. |
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April - Titanic 3D in XD and the Farrelly Brothers' Three Stooges. (Check out the Three Stooges trailer by clicking here.)
May - Avengers and Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen is back as The Dictator. (Check out The Dictator's trailer by clicking here.)
June - The Ridley Scott Alien prequel Prometheus and Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Killer.
And July - Take a deep breath. The Amazing Spider Man and The Dark Knight Rises.
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| Senior Ticket Special |
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