Picoreview: The Imitation Game

Picoreview: The Imitation Game: Pretty good. Not as good as the hype, but pretty good. Better than Interstellar and its hype, for sure. It’s Cumberbatch doing what–not what he necessarily does best, I said, thinking of him in August, Osage County–but certainly what he’s best known for: playing an exceedingly intelligent, not particularly well socialized man with grandiose vision and the ability to carry it out. The difference, of course, is this time it’s a relatively true story. I don’t know a *great* deal about Alan Turing, so I don’t…

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Picoreview: Mockingjay Part 1

Picoreview: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1: Pretty good, actually. I’m not really a fan of the whole split it in two thing, but this worked a lot better for me than, say, Deathly Hallows Part 1 did. I felt pretty strongly that DHP1 could have been neatly tucked into 10 minutes at the start of Part 2 and nothing would have been lost, whereas MJP1 was at least a chance for a lot of emotional resonance. It’s the audience’s chance to see just how badly damaged and PSTD everybody,…

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Picoreview: Serena

Picoreview: Serena: I walked out. Spoilers after the cut, including How I Would Have Done It.

Picoreview: The Grand Seduction

Picoreview: The Grand Seduction: Charming! The Grand Seduction is sort of Doc Hollywood meets The Full Monty (in terms of small town whose main source of employment has dried up, not in terms of stripping :)), with a bit of Waking Ned Devine thrown in. It stars Brendan Gleeson, who is always wonderful, and Taylor Kitsch, who appears to be trying to rebuild a career after his meteoric rise culminated in two gigantic box office flops. (I *like* Kitsch, and in fact liked both John Carter and Battleship, so I’m…

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five things make a post

I had things to post about when I opened this window, I swear. Now I’ve forgotten them all. Well, anyway. Let’s see. There was an early showing of the second How To Train Your Dragon movie yesterday, and the first half of it was good. Ted says the second half was good too, but Young Indiana didn’t make it all the way through, so neither did I. :) I did see (all of) Belle this weekend, and it was *wonderful*. Highly, highly recommended. Working my way through Veronica Mars. I’m…

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