“Do you know what’s even more destructive than a nuclear bomb?” Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) asks Dave Skylark (James Franco) as they bond over their disapproving fathers in The Interview. “Words.” It’s meant to be funny (much is meant to be funny in The Interview—the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg movie that the real Kim […]
Talking Movies
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Talking Movies: Godard’s ‘Goodbye to Language’ teases the limits of our visual and linguistic sensibilities
I am not sure whether there is a better way to give you an idea of what Jean-Luc Godard’s 3-D film Goodbye to Language is, or what it is about…
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Talking Movies: Exploring true crime
Americans like to feel that we invented the ‘true crime’ genre. We think that it happened sometime after World War II, was rooted in classic detective fiction and was nurtured by pulp magazines, film noir, excessive smoking and the shock and disillusionment bred from serial killers and post-war ennui. Several movies currently showing in town […]
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Talking Movies: Finding America at Hardacre
17th Annual Hardacre Film Festival Tipton High School Auditorium — Saturday, Aug. 2 This year the Hardacre Film Festival will not be located in the lovely Hardacre Theater, which is currently undergoing renovation. Instead, three feature-length docs and various shorts will play on Aug. 2 at a one-day event in the newly renovated Tipton High […]
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Little Village’s picks for the summer’s best flicks
Blockbuster movie season is in full force, bringing yet another summer full of mutants, robots, aliens, monsters and all manner of CG creatures to our silver screens. Even if monsters and mechs aren’t your thing, July is jam-packed with reasons (both CG-heavy and not) to make it out to theaters. Here are recommended films to […]
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Talking Movies: The latest X-Men film rises above it’s faulty predecessors
The X-Men are back in their seventh film, X-Men: Days Of Future Past, and this time, they’ve got the biggest, baddest villain of all in their sights. Familiar faces from…
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Talking Movies: Watch Robot Jox instead
Pacific Rim (2013), Godzilla (2014), The Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Transformers 4 (2014): mechs, monsters, quasi-mechs who are monsters. Summer films have easily identifiable trends, and recently the trend has been a potentially pernicious (but sometimes enjoyable) kind of technological fetishism operating at all levels: Characters in films meld with machines while we the audience […]
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Dolls in a Dollhouse: Wes Anderson puts up his most cartoonish characters in Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel was released the first week of March, showed up in Iowa City in late April and is remarkably still showing twice daily at …
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Talking Movies: The Wind Rises explores humanity’s capacity to both create and destroy
May has been christened by FilmScene as “May-azaki” in honor of Hayao Miyazaki, and they will screen four of his masterpieces: My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited…
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Talking Movies: ‘At Berkeley’ takes an important look at public education
A very long documentary that simply observes all facets of a complex institution is probably the most urgent movie that you can see this year. Frederick…
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Talking Movies: Ernest & Celestine is a refreshing animated film for both children and adults
Among other animated films of the moment — including the delightful The Lego Movie — the French-Belgian Ernest & Celestine is a breath of fresh air. It lasts…
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Talking Movies: Captain America is back with his best adventure yet
Captain America returns for an engaging, tense and action-packed thriller of a sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The opening of Marvel’s newest film…
