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1 week ago | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account Director John Waters loves to tell a story about a local Baltimore thrift shop. For a small fee, patrons could buy a "grab bag" gift -- possibly an item of high value. Waters laughs when recalling the story, because the shop owner would just wrap up used bottle caps to stock the grab bag. In other words, the story ran a grift. Waters could well have made the same statement about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Released in 2015, The Force...
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1 month ago | 
cbr.com | David Reddish |James Hawes |Rami Malek |Rachel Brosnahan
The following contains spoilers for The Amateur, in theaters April 11, 2025. Director James Hawes attempts to breathe new life into the spy thriller with his modern-day reimagining of The Amateur, based on Robert Littell’s 1981 novel. Despite the presence of an Oscar-winning lead in Rami Malek and some of today’s most reliable character actors, as well as some great stunts and vistas, the movie never quite succeeds in reaching its lofty ambitions.
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1 month ago | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account In the 1990s, one name dominated TV miniseries: Stephen King. At the time, King had become the wealthiest writer in history, author of such popular novels as Misery, Carrie, IT, The Stand and dozens more. While some of his titles -- Carrie, The Shining -- found homes on the big screen, many more became celebrated TV miniseries, attracting millions of viewers. In 1993, King and ABC partnered to add one more to the miniseries roster: The...
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1 month ago | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
In 1982, a visionary sci-fi future noir film called Blade Runner opened in theatres and bombed. Years later, it not only developed a cult following, but critics also cite it as one of the greatest and most influential science fiction films of all time. In 1998, Alex Proyas’ Dark City had a similar release and reception. Audiences balked, but critics recognized the film as a visionary masterpiece. Roger Ebert named it the best film of the year.
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2 months ago | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
The Matrix Reloaded Follow Followed Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account Image by Morena Perez Vitale How many movies arrive with the seismic thunder of The Matrix? Debuting to little fanfare in 1999, the movie became a sensation. Suddenly, black leather, trenchcoats, and sleek sunglasses became all the rage. Other movies rushed to parody and pilfer the film’s fight choreography. And in a feat matched only by Star Wars, The Matrix spawned its own religion. Suffice it to say...
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Feb 8, 2025 | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Sunset Boulevard Follow Followed Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account "Hooray for Hollywood," the old song says. Since the inception of movies, Hollywood has had an interesting habit of making movies about itself. Until the 1950s, those movies almost exclusively celebrated moviemaking as a kind of idyllic profession, all fun and joy for those lucky enough to work in it. That changed in 1950 when director Billy Wilder issued a blistering denouncement of Hollywood with his film...
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Feb 7, 2025 | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Movies Follow Followed Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account Ke Huy Quan has his face plastered everywhere. The screen icon, noted for his roles in The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and most recently, his Oscar-winning turn in Everything Everywhere All At Once appears on posters, cardboard cutouts and even throw pillows all over the suites of The Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. The reason? Quan opens the action-comedy Love Hurts on February 7. It marks his...
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Feb 4, 2025 | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Movies Follow Followed Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account Among Hollywood directors, few have the career highs and lows as Joe Dante. Dante, a lover of schlock cinema, Looney Tunes and Chuck Jones, has achieved iconic success with some of his films, while others hold the record as some of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history. This bipolar success rate likely derives from Dante’s aesthetic: for better or worse, his movies always combine horror with humor, slapstick with the...
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Jan 25, 2025 | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Captain Blood Follow Followed Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account Ahoy, and meet the granddaddy of all pirate movies. Every swashbuckling film made after 1935 owes a debt of booty to Captain Blood, the Michael Curtiz-directed pirate adventure. It popularized the genre for decades to come and made a star out of its leading buccaneer, Errol Flynn. Warner Bros., inspired by the success of other recent swashbuckling period dramas such as The Count of Monte Cristo, decided to set...
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Jan 11, 2025 | 
cbr.com | David Reddish
Movies Follow Followed Link copied to clipboard Sign in to your CBR account Image by Morena Perez Vitale What to do with The Magnificent Ambersons, director Orson Welles’ follow-up to Citizen Kane? More than seven decades after the movie hit cinemas, it remains a flashpoint of discussion and debate among cinephiles. Some proclaim it as one of the Greatest Movies Ever Made, a worthy successor in style and substance to Citizen Kane. Others, including Welles himself, decry the studio...
