Current Release

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Rush”

Posted September 8, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  The writer Peter Morgan is a whiz at boring into little-remembered (and in the US, sometimes little-known) crannies of recent history and scooping out the rich drama inside, with scripts like The Deal, Frost/Nixon and The Damned United to his credit, along with the more celebrated The Queen.  (His occasional forays into pure fiction […]

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Current Release

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “RED 2”

Posted July 18, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  RED 2:  Watch It At Home – Less Fizz in the Drink This Time The first RED was a disarming surprise, a rom-com action adventure about retired but very lethal spies as bubbly as it was explosive.  It made almost $200M at the worldwide box office, and while that’s not quite Expendables money ($274M […]

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SHOWBUZZDAILY @ SUNDANCE: Collected Reviews

Posted January 29, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  Click on SHOWBUZZDAILY‘s reviews from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, in alphabetical order:   2 DAYS IN NEW YORK (Magnolia) BACHELORETTE (No Distrib) BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Fox Searchlight) CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER (Sony Pictures Classics) COMPLIANCE (Magnolia) FILLY BROWN (No Distrib) THE FIRST TIME (No Distrib) FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL… (Focus) […]

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THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “The Hunger Games”

Posted March 23, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  THE HUNGER GAMES:  Worth A Ticket – The Odds Are Mostly In Its Favor   Now that virtually every blockbuster movie opens in IMAX, going to an IMAX theatre at this time of year provides a de facto trailer festival for an entire summer of (seemingly) more or less mindless spectacle.  As The Avengers […]

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Current Release

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “The Counselor”

Posted October 25, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  THE COUNSELOR:  Not Even For Free – A Deluxe Pedigree, But Only Cut-Rate Nihilism The first “uh-oh” moment in THE COUNSELOR comes early, perhaps 10 minutes in.  We’ve barely been introduced to Reiner (Javier Bardem, genially dissolute, his hair spiky this time) and his lover Malkina (Cameron Diaz, speaking with an on-again, off-again sultry […]

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Current Release

SHOWBUZZDAILY Film Review: “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″”

Posted May 2, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2:  Watch It At Home – The Webs Aren’t Very Tight This Time The huge, lumbering pieces of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 rarely succeed in fitting together.  It’s as though the studio and filmmakers–director Marc Webb and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner (plus co-story writer James Vanderbilt)–started with […]

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Current Release

SHOWBUZZDAILY Film Review: “Nebraska”

Posted November 16, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  NEBRASKA:  Buy A Ticket – A Lovely, Tart Slice of Americana An unusually strong season for American movies continues with the arrival of the simple and profound NEBRASKA, directed by Alexander Payne from a marvelous script by first-time feature writer Bob Nelson.  Among its other virtues, it manages to feature within its 114 minutes […]

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THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Friends With Kids”

Posted March 9, 2012 by Mitch Salem

    FRIENDS WITH KIDS:  Worth A Ticket – Sitcom, In A Good Way   We live in a pop culture where the recent Emmy Award nominees are so clearly superior to the films up for this past year’s Oscar that it’s not even worth arguing about. (Mad Men vs The Artist?  Game of Thrones […]

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