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NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS FOR SUMMER 2023

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
2319

THE LAST ACTION HEROES: THE TRIUMPHS, FLOPS AND FEUDS OF HOLLYWOOD’S KINGS OF CARNAGE by Nick De Semlyen (Crown) There was a time, not so many years ago, when certain names were a guarantee of box-office gold. Stallone and Schwarzenegger led the pack, soon to be joined by Van Damme, Norris, Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, Jackie Chan, and the unlikely Bruce Willis. Author De Semlyen traces each individual’s career trajectory and more important, places it within the fabric of audience fervor for simplistic action moviemaking. As a longtime contributor to Empire, the world’s best movie magazine (which he now edits) he had mano a mano experiences with most of these outsized personalities and blends his observations with those of writers, directors, producers and others who made their films. He seasons…

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BARBIE: IT’S ABOUT TIME

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
5723

I remember when women despised the Barbie doll for creating an unrealistic, unattainable representation of the female body. Over time, the smart people at Mattel expanded their line to be more diverse and inclusive and the stigma all but vanished. One might expect a 21st century mainstream movie produced by the toymaker to be a paean to the signature doll of our lifetime, but director Greta Gerwig (who wrote the screenplay with her partner Noah Baumbach) has concocted something entirely different: a female empowerment saga with a lot to say. Barbie is a clever and canny film that uses Margot Robbie (who also produced the picture) as the embodiment of “Stereotypical Barbie,” the perfectly-dressed and coiffed blond beauty who drives a pink Thunderbird convertible and resides in…

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‘OPPENHEIMER’ IS A TRADITIONAL BIOPIC

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
3610

Now that the drum-beating has peaked, we can see for ourselves what Christopher Nolan has wrought in Oppenheimer, as unlikely a major-studio summer movie as ever was. It’s all dressed up in IMAX and 70mm but what we get is a fairly traditional biopic, no better or worse than many others of recent and distant memory. We even get to see the cast in old-age makeup, but we don’t ever learn what made the man tick. I haven’t read Nolan’s source material, Martin J. Sherwin and Kai Bird’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, so I can’t assess its value as opposed to the film. Being a Nolan screenplay, the story is told in nonlinear fashion. Cillian Murphy, with…

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THE MIRACLE CLUB

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
6583

I’ve become wary of films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2 that offer leading roles to veteran actors and coast on the goodwill they have built up with audiences over many decades’ time. The Miracle Club isn’t exploitive of its eminent cast, but there is no question that this slight drama wouldn’t be worth discussing (let alone seeing) if not for Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, Laura Linney and Stephen Rea. I wound up liking the picture more than I expected to because ultimately it is a story of forgiveness and understanding, two qualities that seem to be scarce these days. Any movie that encourages people to be kinder to one another gets my vote. Linney plays a black sheep who returns to her tiny Irish village after many…

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‘THEATER CAMP’ HAS SURPRISES IN STORE

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
1533

This endearing faux documentary will appeal to anyone who has been, or known, or given birth to a theater kid (as my wife and I did). They are a breed apart and cling to one another like long-lost cousins who have just met after an extended separation. Self-described theater kids Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman have taken a surprisingly farcical approach to their depiction of a summer camp for the breed. It’s a refreshing idea that propels this nearly-believable film and offers good parts to all of them. Amy Sedaris plays the founder of the camp in upstate New York who is sidelined by a poorly-timed stroke. Her friends and surrogate family immediately pitch in to make sure that Adirond Acts…

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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
2218

The latest installment in this blockbuster espionage series shares some of the same assets and liabilities as Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny, but this one scores higher in my tally because it’s better paced, funnier, and genuinely exciting. Tom Cruise is still Tom Cruise, and there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when he breaks into a run. No other movie star, past or present, can run the way he does, with every fiber of his being. What’s more, you know he’s really doing it, which is more than I can say for some stunt scenes where you can actually tell you’re being hoodwinked. As much as the film centers on Cruise, it’s the implacable IMF team (first introduced in the 1960s TV series, along with…

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INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
4702

There’s an old, old show-business maxim that encourages performers to leave their audiences wanting more. Apparently that concept is unknown to many of today’s movers and shakers.  Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has everything money can buy and then some. If one hair-raising, high-speed chase through narrow city streets is good, two should be better. How about three? The motto seems to be “more is more” as the film piles on set-piece after set-piece in a full-throttle attempt to exhaust us in the audience. What began as an homage to the Saturday matinee serials that George Lucas grew up watching on TV (a generation after they were made in the 1940s) has wound up as a bloated vehicle for the still-charismatic Harrison Ford. And…

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