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The Soloist |
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In 'The Soloist,' an emotionally soaring drama about the redemptive power of music, journalist Steve Lopez (Downey Jr.) discovers Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (Foxx), a former classical music prodigy, playing his violin on the streets of L.A. As Lopez endeavors to help the homeless man find his way back, a unique friendship is formed, one that transforms both their lives.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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Dreamgirls |
Set in the turbulent late 1960s and early ‘70s, “DREAMGIRLS” follows the rise of a trio of women—Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyoncé Knowles) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose)—who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. At a talent competition, they are discovered by an ambitious manager named Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who offers them the opportunity of a lifetime: to become the back-up singers for headliner James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy).
Curtis gradually...
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Set in the turbulent late 1960s and early ‘70s, “DREAMGIRLS” follows the rise of a trio of women—Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyoncé Knowles) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose)—who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. At a talent competition, they are discovered by an ambitious manager named Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who offers them the opportunity of a lifetime: to become the back-up singers for headliner James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy).
Curtis gradually takes control of the girls’ look and sound, eventually giving them their own shot in the spotlight as The Dreams. That spotlight, however, begins to narrow in on Deena, finally pushing the less attractive Effie out altogether.
Though the Dreams become a crossover phenomenon, they soon realize that the cost of fame and fortune may be higher than they ever imagined.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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Miami Vice |
The cocaine cowboys of the ’80s are gone, but Miami's Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann’s culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice.
Ricardo Tubbs is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born intel analyst Trudy, played by British actress Naomie Harris, as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders.
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The cocaine cowboys of the ’80s are gone, but Miami's Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann’s culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice.
Ricardo Tubbs is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born intel analyst Trudy, played by British actress Naomie Harris, as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders.
Sonny Crockett is charismatic and flirtatious until -- while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group -- he gets romantically entangled with Isabella, the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker. Isabella is played by the Chinese actress Gong Li.
The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of this case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one-especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves.
Miami Vice, as a large-scale feature film, liberates what is adult, dangerous and alluring about working deeply undercover -- especially when Crockett and Tubbs go to where their badges don’t count.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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Jarhead |
Set during the Gulf War, the episodic tale follows Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, a third-generation enlistee, from his sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he's sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck sack on his back, while moving through Middle East deserts with no cover from the intolerable heat.
As well, he advances with no protection from the Iraqi soldiers and there's always a potential enemy sighting, just over the next horizon.
Swoff and his fellow Marines...
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Set during the Gulf War, the episodic tale follows Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, a third-generation enlistee, from his sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he's sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck sack on his back, while moving through Middle East deserts with no cover from the intolerable heat.
As well, he advances with no protection from the Iraqi soldiers and there's always a potential enemy sighting, just over the next horizon.
Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves on humor and camaraderie as they tread the blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand, against an enemy they can't see, for a cause they don't fully fathom.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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Stealth |
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The world's three best fighter pilots find a common enemy when the military decides to replace human pilots with computers.
Unfortunately, an accident gives the computer pilot a mind of its own and soon the whole world is at the mercy of a computer-controlled fighter plane.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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Ray |
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The true story of American musical legend Ray Charles.
Ray is born into poverty in rural Georgia and loses his sight at the age of seven, but his adversity, and his determined mother, provide him with the necessary motivation to succeed.
As he revolutionized music with his unique style of infusing gospel, country and jazz into a new sound, Ray had to confront the racial politics of growing up in the South on the cusp of the civil rights movement.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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Collateral |
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A dangerous game of cat and mouse ensues when a hired hitman is contracted to kill the key players in an upcoming trial against a drug kingpin. The hitman's usual M.O. becomes compromised when the cab driver that he hires to shuttle him around Los Angeles becomes wise to the killer's true intentions.
When the hitman turns his sights on the beautiful attorney that the cab driver met earlier in the evening, the cabbie must rely on all of his wits and knowledge of the city to save them both.
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Synopsis and Movie Reviews
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G Force Movie Review
