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Reviews
The Closer: You Have the Right to Remain Jolly (2011)
Great holiday episode
Every long-running show is compelled to do a holiday episode, an especial challenge for a crime show. "The Closer" is generally quite witty, but this episode raised the bar. Fred Willard as a drunken Santa Claus was a hoot! Christine Woods played to perfection the role of Buzz's skeptical sister, so much so that she became unbearably annoying -- but that was the point. A terrific addition to the holiday season, and Christmas is good all year.
Run This Town (2019)
Amateurishly Inept
It is truly breath-taking an amateurish this movie is. With the many, and pointless, use of split screens, the director seems to be seeking a postgraduate degree from film school. The script seems unable to figure out what story it is trying to tell (and tells it poorly). Ultimately it is a pity party for millennials, without giving the audience any reason to join in.
Trumbo (2015)
Half-Truths
Helen Mirren, Bryan Cranston and Diane Lane are good reasons to see any film, but this film is so mealy-mouthed -- it wants to fudge that Trumbo was, after all, a member of the Communist Party -- that it is offensive to truth and history.
Copie conforme (2010)
Got two hours of your life you don't want back?
Juliette Binoche, as always, is fantastic, but this lugubrious, precocious film comes to no point and makes no sense.
The Old Man & the Gun (2018)
Good send off
If this is Redford's farewell, he leaves on a high note, in what may be his best performance. This eccentric film is enhanced by solid work by many estimable performers, but it is Redford's film, his and a radiant Sissy Spacek. Very subtle character study. There is some overdirection, alas, but it really does not get in the way.