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Commentary – J. Edgar
He was a mysterious figure in American history. His personal life was always shrouded in mystery … He was this bulldog figure, the face of the FBI, and he changed our country in a time of great lawlessness. Bank robbers were going from state to state becoming local heroes; he cleaned up all that mess. Got rid of the Commies and Bolshevik invasion while single handily creating this new federal police force. He was part of modern forensics and identifying everybody in our country. But then there were all those salacious rumors that you heard about him too. So it was very exciting to see somebody’s (Clint Eastwood) very specific…
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20th Philadelphia Film Festival – BUTTER
When the butter committee feels Bob should bow out of this season to allow someone else a chance at the "Blue Bonnet" :-) I mean blue ribbons. Laura decides she's not about to let all her ambitions melt away and signs up to compete herself...
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20th Philadelphia Film Festival – A Dangerous Method
I had seen the trailer for A Dangerous Method months ago and was highly anticipating its release. My excitement increased learning I’d get to see it early as part of the Philadelphia Film Festival. But just like when you’re in a restaurant and there’s an item on the menu that sounds perfect, you envision how it will come presented, the moment of satisfaction when it hits the pleasure center of the brain… but upon arrival to your table, it’s dry or watery or small or tasteless or just not what you had in mind. And such was the case with David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method. In my opinion, the film…
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20th Philadelphia Film Festival – Melancholia
If I owned an incredibly elegant, picturesque, stately castle with an 18 hole golf course and stable full of horses, I’d too would be sad and scared to see the end of the world, because you gotta figure life on the other side might not be as good. In writer/director Lars von Trier’s film, Melancholia is a planet that has been hiding behind the sun for eons and has suddenly made its appearance known as it starts traveling through the galaxy. During its rotation, it has come close, but not hit other planets in the solar system; therefore, the scientist on earth predict Melancholia passing by the earth will be…
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Commentary – The Big Year
by Le Anne Lindsay, written for CINEDELPHIA.com The movie’s about a competition, but the competition is really a metaphor for trying to achieve great ambition. It’s about the pursuit of excellence, and it’s about three guys who are just trying to get outside of their normal, everyday existence and achieve something they’ve always dreamed of… – Director David Frankel (Marley & Me) excerpt from interview on BirdingBlogs.com What are these three guys played by Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson trying to achieve? A Big Year! A term in Birding (not to be called bird watching) for an entire year spent traveling around the country, up hills, down rivers,…
