La La Land (PG-13) ***** This is a film that might divide parents and their children, though both should love it. It’s a classic take on a classic Hollywood plot: aspiring actress meets a guy and has to make a…
Mike at the Movies
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Collateral Beauty (PG-13) ***** It is rare for a film to bring me, a crusty old person, to tears, but this one did and for good and honest reasons. The performances are all top-notch, the setting lovely (Christmas), the script…
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Miss Sloane (R) ***** DC natives will eat this film like another Thanksgiving feast. It is set in DC and filmed in DC, and its plot is sheer “inside the Beltway.” Characters make up in deviousness what they lack in…
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Allied (R) ***** Wow! A thriller on many levels, this World War II spy drama keeps ratcheting up the tension under the sure hand of Director Robert Zemeckis. Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) is a Canadian spy for the allies and…
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Arrival (PG-13) ***** Amy Adams deepens her résumé with a spell-binding performance as linguist Louise Banks, assigned to translate alien speech for the U.S. scientific community when 12 pods hover over Earth with no apparent purpose, peaceful or warlike, motivating…
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Denial (PG-13) **** Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson (Richard Rampton) team up as a noted historian and a noted British attorney in the film version of a famous trial of Holocaust denier David Irving. Irving (Timothy Spall) sued Deborah Lipstadt…
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The Girl on the Train (R) ***** I give this a top rating because it’s an excellent and unusual thriller based on the novel by Paula Hawkins, but with reservations because it is extremely difficult to follow. Almost everybody in…
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The Magnificent Seven (PG-13) ***** “The Magnificent Seven” is by far the best film these eyes have seen all summer/fall. A top-notch cast, a superb musical score (yes, you get a chance to hear parts of the original score by…
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Sully (PG-13) **** The movie account of the famed US Airways crash landing on the Hudson River in 2009 can be criticized for a certain lack of suspense due to the fact that the incidents surrounding the flight are so…
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Hell or High Water (R) ***** Good American westerns are usually morality plays. So it is with this film, magnificently directed by David Mackenzie. Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is an old Texas Ranger about to retire. He and his half-Comanche,…