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Ender’s Game (2013)
This is not a game.
Filmmaker(s): Gavin Hood

Based on the classic novel by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is the story of the Earth's most gifted children training to defend their homeplanet in the space wars of the future.

Internals Revealed I do dimly recall the first couple books of the series. They were engagingly written. But more importantly, they used a device that probably won‘t work today. The books were powerful because they focused on Ender‘s internal mind. The second book folded this into Ender‘s...


Published February 6, 2024
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The Wolverine (2013)
When he's most vulnerable, he's most dangerous.
Filmmaker(s): James Mangold

Wolverine faces his ultimate nemesis - and tests of his physical, emotional, and mortal limits - in a life-changing voyage to modern-day Japan.

Sniffing the Dog that Went Before There isn’t much to say about the ordinary features of this. It is a Marvel production and that means the world is dull in all aspects. They seem incapable of leaving safe territory, so this is more or less Michael...


Published February 5, 2024
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The Gruffalo’s Child (2011)

A follow up to the 2009 animated feature and adapted from the childrens' book by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler. The Gruffalo's child explores the deep dark wood in search of the big bad mouse and meets the Snake, Owl and Fox in the process. She eventually finds the mouse, who manages to outwit her like the Gruffalo before!

Flat Black Tongues Oh help. Oh no! This is not the Gruffalo. If you know the book of which this story is the sequel, then you have experienced something special. It has an untrusted narrator nested in another untrusted narrator. The inner con is by a mouse...


Published February 5, 2024
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World War Z (2013)
There will come a day when the world we know will end.
Filmmaker(s): Marc Forster

Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.

Angry Water I understand that the development of this was a mess. What mattered to me were three things done well: The transition from normal life to the human waves was jarringly effective. What I expect is a traditional zombie story. Some explanation and setup is given...


Published February 5, 2024
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Boyhood (I) (2014)
12 years in the making.
Filmmaker(s): Richard Linklater

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.

Students, Teachers, Dogs When I watch a reasonably well built film, I cruise at two levels. One is the excellence of how I am captured by the way the narrative unfolds in a world I am seduced into maintaining (and possibly cocreating). The other gliding level...


Published February 5, 2024
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Penguins of Madagascar (2014)
The movie event that will blow their cover

Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private join forces with undercover organization The North Wind to stop the villainous Dr. Octavius Brine from destroying the world as we know it.

Films on Top of Films Some reviews you will read may remark on how self-aware this is as a movie. The target audience of kids won‘t get any of the movie references, but some of their parents will. It is pretty obvious that a strategy of...


Published February 5, 2024
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The Monuments Men (2014)
It was the greatest art heist in history
Filmmaker(s): George Clooney

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?

The Diary I am thankful that Clooney is working. I’ve heard him speak as himself; he is a good man, interested in good things. I forgive him his lack of range as an actor, because the characters he plays are so engaging. And he made ‘Good...


Published February 5, 2024
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Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)
A true story of faith, devotion and undying love.
Filmmaker(s): Lasse Hallström

A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home.

Multiple Watchers I don’t know the original Japanese film on which this is based, but of course I do know the real life story. I watched this with 3 and ten year olds, and watched them squirm with the slow, very slow pacing. I found it not...


Published February 5, 2024
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Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
A Slight Case Of Murder... Solved by Jimmy Wong!
Filmmaker(s): Phil Rosen

In the middle of a pictorial lecture on his recent expedition to the Mongolian Desert, Dr. John Benton,the famous explorer, drinks from the water bottle on his lecture table, collapses and dies. His last words "Eternal Fire" are the only clue Chinese detective Jimmy Wong and Captain Street of the police department have to work on.

Conspiratorial Filmmaking I maintain that some very important conventions were worked out in 30s mysteries. The Charlie Chan series was instrumental in some of these, and this is the last of them. It incidentally has Charlie‘s son as the detective, the first Asian playing the character....


Published February 5, 2024
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The House of Fear (1939)
Filmmaker(s): Joe May

A detective goes undercover as a producer to investigate an actor's murder, which occurred during the performance of a play...

Triple Staged I watch these old mysteries not because I expect to find a good one. They rarely are, but often you can see a free art experimenting with different cinematic tricks while no one yet had a settled cinematic vocabulary. And here is a good...


Published February 5, 2024
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