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Mid90s IS REAL AND RAW

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
6661

Mid90s is a raw, intimate look at kids in L.A. during the 1990s.The protagonist is a sweet, good-hearted kid (Sunny Suljic) who doesn’t get along with his big brother (a scowling Lucas Hedges) and craves attention from his busy but well-meaning mother (Katherine Waterston). She doesn’t realize how alienated her 13-year-old feels right now. Not surprisingly, he finds a surrogate family of skateboarders on the street. They’re all older than him and completely divorced from reality. They get drunk, get high, get into trouble, and have no ambition whatsoever. One of them harbored dreams of becoming a professional skateboarder, but his best friend, who shared that goal, abandoned it and is now a goofy drunk. The boy tries to pretend he’s more worldly than he…

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BORDER: AS STRANGE AS IT GETS

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
8871

This Swedish Oscar contender is one of the strangest films I have ever seen. Yet it grabbed me from the opening scene and never loosened its grip. Its protagonist is a notably unattractive woman who works for Customs at a port where cruise ships dock. We quickly learn that she has an unusually keen sense of smell, enhanced by intuition and experience. Actress Eva Melander is forever sniffing, and periodically stops innocent-looking passengers who turn out to be smuggling contraband of one sort or another into her country. She may look peculiar but she’s good at her job. Living life is another matter, involving a variety of challenges. She loves her father, who resides in a nursing home, and lives with a “macho man” who…

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REMEMBERING MY FRIEND JIMMY KAREN

Leonard Maltin
28183

Several years ago I got a phone call no one ever wants to receive: it appeared that Jimmy Karen was on death’s door. He wanted a “proper” obit and asked me to write one. As difficult as it was, I wanted to do right by him. Jimmy had a wide circle of friends, so I wasn’t surprised when his wife Alba put me in touch with George Clooney, Morgan Freeman, and Oliver Stone for quotes. Then a miracle occurred: Jimmy rebounded and regained his health!  George Clooney even referred to this false alarm in his thank-you speech at this year’s AFI Awards dinner. Although his energy was limited in recent years, Jimmy was not the type of person to stay home when something fun was…

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THE GUILTY: A SLEEPER YOU SHOULD SEE

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
7465

The Guilty is a clever, thoroughly engrossing film from Denmark that marks the directorial debut of Swedish-born Gustav Möller, who also co-wrote the screenplay. This marks his first effort since graduating from film school, and he made it with a bare-bones crew consisting of fellow students. Only leading man Jakob Cedergren is an experienced professional. Möller made sure the story was one he could fully realize, while providing himself with a major challenge: it all takes place inside one office, with a brief detour to an adjoining room. That office is the headquarters of emergency services—what we would call 911. Unlike here in the States, in Denmark the operation is manned by police. Our protagonist is there as a kind of punishment while an internal review…

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‘FIRST MAN’ IS A QUIETLY PROFOUND DRAMA

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
8584

First Man is not the movie I expected—it’s better. It combines a truly immersive approach to space travel with an intimate story that helps define and celebrate Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. In adapting James R. Hansen’s book, screenwriter Josh Singer (Spotlight, The Post) and director Damien Chazelle have taken a macro and micro view of this astronaut’s journey. Much of that is interior, as he suppresses his overwhelming sadness over the death of a child, but that ruminative quality is accompanied by heart-pounding action. I can’t think of another 2018 movie that opens with such a “grabber” of a sequence, a highly-charged, first-person point-of-view scene that makes us feel as if we are actually experiencing space travel on the edge…

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BEAUTIFUL BOY

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
6403

Standout performances by Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet make Beautiful Boy worthwhile and earmark it as Oscar material. It also has the novelty of being adapted from dual best-selling memoirs, Beautiful Boy by journalist David Sheff and Tweak by his son Nic Sheff. This would seem to promise fresh insights into the hell and heartbreak of addiction, but there is little here we haven’t seen before. The film is earnest but long and redundant. It feels like medicine that’s supposed to be good for us but lacks any redeeming flavor. Carell has proven himself a solid dramatic actor by now. He gives a moving performance as a father who is desperate to help his teenage son—who is sadly past the point of intervention. Chalamet, who made such a splash last year in Call…

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MALTINS ON MERCH

Leonard Maltin
3997

Well here are some words I never thought I’d say–I’ve got merch! The lovely folks at Tee Public reached out to us which got our creative juices flowing. Jessie has commissioned pieces from her talented friends and is working hard to create items that will appease and amuse cinephiles of all ages. This is definitely a work in progress, and we’re very happy to be sharing it with you. Go to https://www.teepublic.com/stores/maltin-on-movies. @leonardmaltin on twitter, instagram and facebook. @jessiemaltin on twitter and instagram. Emails can be sent to maltinmovies@gmail.com    

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