As if the Christmas movie marketplace wasn’t already crowded enough, more awards-season contenders have come out this week than ever before. The one real contender is probably the film no one would ever have predicted: the formally challenging financial-collapse comedy/drama **“The Big Short”** from “Anchorman” director Adam McKay. That must-see ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Dec. 25, 2015
http://www.lawrence.com/photos/2015/dec/16/300724/ There’s nothing like seeing a favorite movie from your childhood for the first time in almost 20 years to make you feel old. That’s about how long it’s been since I saw George Lucas’ first “Star Wars.” Of course, I saw it about 10 times in the theater in ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Dec. 16, 2015
Every January when the Academy Award nominations are announced, movie fans all over the world scan the ballots to see which movies they need to catch up on. Some of the films nominated will be playing in theaters, and some will have already been released on Blu-ray/DVD, but this year ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Dec. 4, 2015
When Kansas University Professor **John Tibbetts** began interviewing international movie directors, cinematographers, editors, composers, and others behind the camera, he always had an eye on the future. “I intended from the outset to bring these conversations into my classrooms. I never saw them as merely subjects for television/radio broadcasts,” Tibbetts ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Nov. 25, 2015
With the lyric “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss,” The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” might have been a good theme song for **“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2.”** It applies not only to the story of reluctant hero Katniss Everdeen (**Jennifer Lawrence**) and the citizens of Panem, ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Nov. 21, 2015
When Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” was released in 1987, a classic villain was born. Power-hungry corporate player Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) broke the law, got rich, and espoused that “greed, for lack of a better term, is good.” Ninety-nine percent of America understood that Gekko was the bad guy, but ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Nov. 13, 2015
**“Spectre,”** the 24th official James Bond movie in the Eon Productions series, is the most “Bond” movie since **Daniel Craig** took over the lead role in 2006. Name any quality of classic Bond — stylish costumes, international locations, outlandish action scenes, martinis, slick cars, spy gadgetry, gorgeous women, silent henchmen, ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Nov. 6, 2015
Where do you draw the line when a movie is based on a true story? It’s a tough question for every filmgoer to answer, and it's different with every movie. One notion however, is clear: There is a certain perspective and level of expectation when you are led to believe ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Oct. 30, 2015
http://www.lawrence.com/photos/2015/oct/22/298276/ The horror movie genre exists because people love to be scared. Take one look at a list of “horror” movies streaming online, though, and you’ll see a ton of gory slasher pictures and sequel after lame sequel that aren’t scary at all. Fear is trickier than that. It manifests ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Oct. 23, 2015
With movies like “Apollo 13,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and “Captain Phillips,” **Tom Hanks** proved himself to be the symbol of historical American heroism. Now, with the new **Steven Spielberg**-directed drama **“Bridge of Spies,”** he has firmly cemented himself as the perfect representative of something even more relevant in complicated modern ...
- Posted by Eric Melin
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Oct. 16, 2015