MOVIE REVIEW: Lee Daniels' The Butler

Beyond a few large leaps of over-convenient fictional story weaving, the film is a remarkable and powerful experience that everyone should see.  A star-studded cast delivers a highly involving and endlessly interesting historical journey through America's quest for civil rights and racial equality.  Academy Award winner Forrest Whitaker plays the title character of Cecil Gaines, a black White House butler whose 34-year tenure in the position spans eight Presidents.  

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Spectacular Now

Many who will see The Spectacular Now are going to look on paper and see a 2013 Say Anything...  That's great company for Ponsoldt's film to be mentioned in, but the comparisons are fair and unfair at the same time.  Both films offer excellent high school romances that resonate and matter.  There's no doubt about that, but the two movies couldn't be more different in time, purpose, and intention.  

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MOVIE REVIEW: Drinking Buddies

To its great credit, Drinking Buddies never settles for any of those obvious scenarios and twists.  It takes a more elusive and challenging route once the couples combine on a double-date weekend at Chris's lake house.  The mistakes, flaws, and opportunities you think are coming, because you've seen this kind of movie before, don't materialize like you think.  Some don't materialize at all.  The waters are murkier than first thought.  If you prefer your movies predictable and formulaic, you've come to the wrong place.  At the same time, it's still missing a bit of the charm it promised with its setup.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Wolverine

The Wolverine is a tangent standalone story that follows up one of the two post-credit teases that came out of X-Men: Origins Wolverine.  This film showcases Logan's storied history in Japan that is loosely based off a much-loved four-issue 1982 comic mini-series by writer Chris Claremont and artist Frank Miller.  This is the movie we should have gotten four years ago.  It's far from a perfect movie, but far from a bad one as well.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives is everything Drive was only slower, quieter, dumber, and more incoherent in every methodical way possible.  It's yet another case of something that is all style and no substance or point. 

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