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The Great Gatsby 2013
Adaptations are always a tricky business. In translating a novel, especially a beloved one, to the screen, there is bound to be a few things missed or substituted. In the case of Baz Luhrman’s take on The Great Gatsby it would seem that style is emphasized over the substance of the novel. The story is familiar to anyone who took a high school English course and it is followed fairly closely in the film, but the heart of the novel’s…
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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 2011
Where do I begin with this film? Following on the coattails of the first three Pirates films, this one comes as a huge letdown from the franchise. While most people agree that the two after The Curse of the Black Pearl are not as good as the first, this one is definitely the worst of them all.
Let's start with the biggest problem: having Jack Sparrow as the main character. That's an issue because Jack Sparrow is a static character;…
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The Grey 2012
Man has been in a perpetual struggle against the wilds of nature since the inception of civilization. After the wilderness was conquered, society felt that there was no need to return. Yet, a morbid fascination with survival in impossible conditions remains, showcased in the various novels and films that pit man and nature against one another. It’s that lingering question of whether we would be capable of surviving the brutality of nature without all the pampering and luxury of modern…
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2011
The secret to the success of international bestseller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo seems to be the balance Stieg Larsson found with his inimitable heroine Lisbeth Salander and the universal appeal of crime fiction. The novel has been adapted for film in the author’s home country of Sweden, and now for the U.S. with David Fincher at the helm. As a director a series of landmark thrillers in his filmography, the choice was a wise one. In his adaptation…
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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 2011
It is a widely held belief among the American public that movie sequels have a general tendency to be inferior to their predecessors. The original is almost always the best. However, that hardly stops us from paying Hollywood to see them again and again. We crave familiarity and films containing the same characters and similar plotlines we have seen so many times is a great way to obtain it. There are special cases, though, sequels that not only provide audiences…
