Captain America: Civil War★★★½ Opening Friday, May 6 Given the factious fervor of fans on both sides of the aisle between Marvel and DC Comics films, it’s a droll coincidence that Captain America: Civil War, the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shares the same general premise as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, […]
Neil Morris
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Full Frame: Underdogs Get Their Place in the Spotlight
Sonita (★★★½) Life, Animated (★★★) Raising Bertie (★★) Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham Saturday, April 9, 2016 Perseverance is a common theme in documentaries, usually involving the tenacity of a film’s subject and occasionally the filmmakers. Three docs featured during day three of this year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival ply this premise, with […]
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Full Frame Tribute Award Winner Kirsten Johnson Seeks Truth in Cinematography in Cameraperson
FULL FRAME: CAMERAPERSON The Carolina Theatre, Durham Friday, April 8, 4:30 p.m., $14–$16 In director Kirsten Johnson‘s autobiographical anthology of her twenty-five years in cinematography, Cameraperson, she includes a scene from her film Derrida, in which she trips and nearly falls while filming the French philosopher crossing a street in Manhattan. “That’s the image of […]
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Six Full Frame Films Keep Local Voices in the International Mix
Though Full Frame draws filmmakers from around the country, and even the world, it doesn’t neglect its home state. Here are a few docs with Tar Heel ties to look for at the festival this year. THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W. EUGENE SMITH (April 7, 10:10 a.m)From 1957 to 1965, W. Eugene Smith, a […]
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Movie Review: A Very Dark Knight and Cold Man of Steel in Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice★★★ Opening Friday, March 25 A millennium hence, our descendants might try to decipher our current superhero obsession the way we study ancient Greek legends. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which conflates modern religious and mythological allegories, will be rich material. In a span of minutes, eccentric nemesis Lex […]
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Movie Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane Has Wit and Suspense, Not Just Mysterious Marketing
10 Cloverfield Lane★★★ ½ Opening Friday, March 11 The crazy survivalist just might be right, but he’s still crazy. That’s the lesson of 10 Cloverfield Lane, a film that begins like a prequel to Room and ends like a sequel to Alien. Or, well, Cloverfield. A gripping cold open introduces Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a […]
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Movie Review: London Has Fallen Isn’t the Action Movie We Need
London Has Fallen★ Opening Friday In London Has Fallen, U.S. president Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) is back after escaping capture in 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen. To paraphrase the eulogy for another Eckhart character, Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, this isn’t the action movie we need, but it’s the one we deserve. A cavalcade of […]
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Movie Review: A Body in a Glacier Cracks Open a Long Marriage in 45 Years
45 Years ★★★ ½ Opening Friday Writer-director Andrew Haigh’s most fiendish ploy in 45 Years is that he provides precious few hints of the good times shared by Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling), a retired schoolteacher, and Geoff (Tom Courtenay), a retired factory manager. No pictures of the couple adorn the walls of their provincial English […]
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The director of Birdman returns with The Revenant, a masterful neo-Western about survival and rebirth
THE REVENANT Opening Friday At one point in The Revenant, stranded fur trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes overnight shelter from a blizzard by removing the entrails of a dead horse and sliding into its hollowed-out carcass. When morning arrives, he slowly emerges, naked, from the grisly womb. At another point, he crawls out of […]
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In his latest historical bloodbath, The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino teeters on self-parody
The Hateful Eight Opening wide Friday The best things during the interminable three hours of the latest film by Quentin Tarantino are the stirring new musical overture by the great Ennio Morricone and the 12-minute intermission, when you can flee the theater without bothering the rest of the audience. Set in post-Civil War Wyoming, The […]