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Up / **** (PG)
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"Up" (Pg, 96 minutes). Two cranky old men and a plucky kid, a house tied to ballons and a giant airship, a goofy bird and another animated masterpiece from Pixar's Pete Docter ("Monster, Inc."). With the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer and Jordan Nagai. Rating: Four stars.
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Departures / **** (PG-13)
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"Departures" (PG-13, 130 minutes). A jobless classical musician takes job in "encoffinment," the Japanese ritual preparation of the dead. The film is lovely, moving and wise, and the actors embody their roles--the young man, his fond wife, his wise boss, and the boss's encouraging, quietly sad assistant. directed by Yojiro Takita. Winner of the 2009 Oscar for best foreign film. Four stars.
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Easy Virtue / *** (PG-13)
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"Easy Virtue" (PG-13). A young Brit (Ben Barnes) brings his dashing American love (Jessicsa Biel) home to meet his parents (Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth) with unsettling results. The early Noel Coward play is adapted with wit and style. Three stars.
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Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian / *1/2 (PG)
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by Roger Ebert
Don't trust me on this movie. It rubbed me the wrong way. I can understand, as an abstract concept, why some people would find it entertaining. It sure sounds intriguing: "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian." If that sounds like fun to you, don't listen to sourpuss here.
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The Girlfriend Experience / **** (R)
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by Roger Ebert
This film is true about human nature. It clearly sees needs and desires. It is not universal, but within its particular focus, it is unrelenting. Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" is about a prostitute and her clients. In such a relationship, the factor of money makes the motives fairly direct on both sides.
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Summer Hours / *** ()
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by Roger Ebert
Sometimes what holds a family together is custom and guilt. "Summer Hours" begins on the 75th birthday of Helene, a woman who is joined in the French countryside by her three children and their families. Much of the talk is about how far two of the children had to travel -- one from New York, the other from China -- and there's the sense they're eager to be going home. Sure, they love their mother. They really do. But you know how it is. They visit less because they should visit more.
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The Brothers Bloom / **1/2 (PG-13)
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by Roger Ebert
Those con-man movies are best that con the audience. We should think at some point that everything is for real, or even better, that we can see through it when we can't. I offer as examples works by the master of the genre, David Mamet: "House of Games," "The Spanish Prisoner" and "Redbelt."
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Adoration / *** (R)
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by Roger Ebert
Atom Egoyan is fascinated by the way life coils back on itself. He uses coincidences and chance meetings not as plot devices but as illustrations of the ways we are linked across generations and national boundaries. His characters are often not completely connected to where they find themselves, and bring along personal, sometimes secret associations. These often reflect much larger realities in the outer world.
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Movie Answer Man: How many "The Ends" is too many?
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Q. What is your opinion of the growing trend for filmmakers to include "alternate" endings on their movies' DVD releases? While I'm reasonably comfortable with a different presentation of the ending from that originally conceived (for example, "Training Day"), it seems that to offer a different outcome is an admission of failure on the part of the director. If the movie is well structured, shouldn't the outcome follow inevitably and essentially from the plot and characters depicted? Even in movies famous for the twist in their tales, the ending is compelling at the very least in retrospect (for example, "The Sixth Sense," "The Crying Game," "Memento").
To me, an alternate ending sends the message that the director lacks commitment to or faith in his material. I give a pass here to movies where a director restores his or her preferred ending in a director's cut over one that was handed down by "creative executives" (for example, "Blade Runner"), but I've never felt that watching a movie should be an exercise in choosing the ending that makes you feel most comfortable.
Carl Zetie, Waterford, VA.
A. In the case of a movie not worth taking seriously in the first place, alternate endings can be fun. Otherwise I agree with you.
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