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Riff-Raff/Raining Stones (★★★)

Director Ken Loach revolutionized British cinema with his highly naturalistic performances, a technique so realistic people assumed his films were improvised. A vocal proponent for various political...

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The Secret of Santa Vittoria (★★★½)

The secret in Santa Vittoria is where a million bottles of wine are stashed, a mundane plot for a WWII comedy, right? Director Stanley Kramer, whose work expressed the hilarity and devotion to pride...

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Historical Film Review: The Killer Elite (★★½)

Director Sam Peckinpah was well-known for his violently graphic and introspective films, as well as his incredibly difficult nature that ended up dooming his career. By the mid-1970s Peckinpah...

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Historical Film Review: La Bamba (★★½)

Musical biopics are a dime a dozen as evidenced by Clint Eastwood’s look at the Four Seasons in Jersey Boys and the recent Jimi Hendrix biopic, Jimi: All Is By My Side. If one looked at 1987 they’d see...

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Historical Film Review: Che! (★★)

The first person to cross the finish line wins, a rule that Hollywood endorses no matter what. When revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara died in 1967 Hollywood scrambled to present his life on film. Two...

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Historical Review: Salvador (★★★½)

Much like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg it’s hard believing there was a time where Oliver Stone wasn’t a well-regarded director. Regardless of the film’s quality, you can’t ignore Stone’s love of...

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Historical Circuit: The Vanishing (★★)

Director George Sluzier’s 1988 Dutch-French film, Spoorloos, is considered a masterpiece with its bleak exploration of evil. When Sluzier was given the opportunity to remake his film in 1993, with an...

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Historical Circuit: The Believers (★★½)

I’m unsure what was  going on the 1980s sparking the impetus for African voodoo films, what with this and films like Angel Heart and The Serpent and the Rainbow. Director John Schlesinger’s The...

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Historical Circuit: Under Fire (★★)

Communism and governmental coups dominated Latin America in the 1970s-1980s with US involvement remaining shadowy and ill-defined. Hollywood, despite not always calling on our own involvement in these...

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Historical Circuit: Judgment at Nuremberg (★★★★)

There are certain real-world events Hollywood is quick to capitalize on (Che!) and others they take their time with (the Vietnam War wasn’t depicted widely until the 1970s-1980s). Judgment at Nuremberg...

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Historical Circuit: Bunny Lake is Missing (★★★)

Director Otto Preminger created some legendary dramas and mysteries such as Laura, The Man With the Golden Arm, and Anatomy of a Murder. But by the 1960s he struggled to stay on top in a changing...

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Historical Circuit: Annie (★½)

Oh boy.  I really have to control my anger and frustration for today’s review in honor of the upcoming remake of Annie starring Quvenzhane Wallis and Cameron Diaz. In a nutshell, I hated this movie....

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Historical Circuit: Working Girl (★★★) by Mike Nichols

After the revolution that was second-wave feminism in the 1970s, the 1980s was considered a time of complacency. Women achieved what they wanted, right? With the idea of women in the workforce no...

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Historical Circuit: Star 80 (★★★)

This week’s release of True Story, the eponymous “true story” of murderer Christian Longo (played by James Franco) who murdered his wife and children is one of countless tales involving murder and...

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Historical Circuit: U Turn (★★★★)

By 1997, Oliver Stone became the director known for railing about political conspiracies or governmental injustices in dramatic polemics like Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, and Nixon. In between...

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Historical Circuit: Far From the Madding Crowd (1967) (★★)

In honor of its remake opening this week, let’s go back to 1967 when Thomas Hardy’s novel first received the big-budget Hollywood treatment. Far From the Madding Crowd is a difficult text to adapt...

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Historical Circuit: Mommie Dearest (★★★) – MOTHERS DAY EDITION

This Mother’s Day we should all hug our moms…for fear they decide to beat us with a wire hanger! Mommie Dearest, the movie that’s collectively become synonymous with schlock and the “mother” of all bad...

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Historical Circuit: Pocahontas (★★½)

In honor of ACCA 1995, I’ve decided to pick a few titles that were special to my seven-year-old self that year. Don’t assume it’ll be all kids movies….my parents were pretty lenient. I decided to start...

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Historical Circuit: Twilight Zone – The Movie (1983) (★★★)

I’m a critic who grew up with anthology shows, whether it was Tales From the Crypt (aka that show I was never supposed to watch, but that always happened to be on) or The Twilight Zone (a discovery I...

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Historical Circuit: Absolute Beginners (★★½)

By the 1980s British cinema was dying. Long the country known for prestige pictures like Gandhi and Chariots of Fire (put out by the same studio that put out this film, Goldcrest), the British film...

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