Dann Gire
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Top 10 movies: Film critic Dann Gire offers his favorites from 2021Jan 02, 2022 6:33 am - In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted critics just as much as it has film production and movie theaters. In my case, I have tried to avoid all theatrical press scr...
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Bradley Cooper taps his dark side in Guillermo del Toro's deliciously dark 'Nightmare Alley'Dec 16, 2021 5:00 am - “Nightmare Alley” - ★ ★ ★ ★ If you took a sleazy, exploitative E.C. Comics tale, made it into a motion picture with top acting talent and A-list production design ...
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Steven Spielberg's first musical a bold, fresh, spectacular take on the 1961 classic 'West Side Story'Dec 06, 2021 3:30 pm - “West Side Story” - ★ ★ ★ ★ The master has remastered a masterpiece! No movie could be a greater gamble for filmmaker Steven Spielberg than his joyously bold and revisio...
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Disney's 'Encanto' an explosively colorful, Mirandized musical family fantasyNov 23, 2021 2:00 pm - “Encanto” - ★ ★ ★ ½ Walt Disney's explosively colorful, Mirandized-musical family fantasy “Encanto” would appear to be an ideal follow-up to the studio's megahit girl-po...
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Nostalgia trumps originality in ghost-flustered 'Afterlife'Nov 18, 2021 5:00 am - “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” - ★ ★ ½ Eleven years ago at the Hollywood Blvd. in Woodridge, I asked Dan Aykroyd when we could expect to see the next, highly anticipated...
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Pluck of the Irish: Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast' an insightful, delightful domestic dramaNov 11, 2021 5:00 am - “Belfast” - ★ ★ ★ ★ Writer/director Kenneth Branagh's most jubilantly personal movie yet, “Belfast,” begins as a classic horror film and ends where a classic immigrants...
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Style, substance at heart of infectiously cinematic, sensational shocker 'Last Night in Soho'Oct 28, 2021 6:00 am - “Last Night in Soho” - ★ ★ ★ ½ The less you know about this gleeful, supercharged masterpiece of movie manipulation, the better. One spoiler can be allowed because...
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Suffering characters hang on for deer life in handsomely mounted creature feature 'Antlers'Oct 28, 2021 6:00 am - “Antlers” - ★ ★ ½ Don't get all excited just because freaky creature feature filmmaker Guillermo del Toro produced one of the scary movies playing this Halloween w...
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Do horror movies have value? 13 horror fantasies that will open your mind this HalloweenOct 27, 2021 11:00 pm - Horror movies have been popular ever since the dawn of cinema. But of what value can they possibly be? I posed this question to George Romero, creator of the modern zomb...
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Denis Villeneuve directs a highly visual, empathy-challenged, almost too-faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert's 'Dune'Oct 20, 2021 6:00 am - “Dune” - ★ ★ ½ Hey, at least this spectacular, fervidly anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert's densely packed 1965 science-fiction novel “Dune” fares better than Dav...