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Family flix pix
The following reviews are offered as a guide to families looking for age-appropriate movies..
Ocean’s 11, Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh remakes the original of a Las Vegas heist that stars the eye-candy of Hollywood, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia. Teaming with Danny Ocean (Clooney), Pitt decides to form the biggest theft in Vegas history robbing the Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand. In Vegas history, only three have come close. It’s got the rat pack feeling with an attitude of not being the remake of a great movie, but just a fun concept with a groovy soundtrack. PG 13 rating for some slight bloodless violence and mild sexual content.
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Corky Romano, Good-natured veterinarian Corky Romano (Chris Kattan) is stunned when he receives a surprising call from his long lost “Pops” (Peter Falk), an underworld crime lord indicted by a Grand Jury. With his trial just two weeks away, it looks as if the Mafia kingpin is finally going down. The long shot is his son Corky, abandoned from the family at a young age for not fitting in. He’s the one person who can infiltrate the FBI undetected. This try-to-be Austin Powers spoof, isn’t, but it certainly makes for a fun rental with the same kind of feeling. An adult lean PG 13 rating (parents check it out).
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From Hell, Yet another take on the infamous Jack the Ripper, who made his name slaughtering prostitutes in Victorian London. This time there’s a chilling alleged conspiracy involving the highest powers in England, and it’s up to Johnny Depp, to unravel it. When we meet him, he’s smoking in an opium den — maybe they should have called it “Jack the Tripper.” In fact, the movie often plays like an opium dream, full of paranoia, spooky fantasies, and comical love interest embodied (and how) by Heather Graham, as a hooker. R rating for obvious reasons. Put the kids to bed.
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Snow Dogs, A throwback to those ‘70’s Disney flicks the guy and the dog(s), in the story of Ted Brooks (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), a successful Miami dentist who suddenly finds himself in Alaska for the reading of a will. Greeted by a continuous string of gruff characters, he learns that he’s adopted and his mother left him a cabin with a dog sled team. But it gets worse when Gooding learns his biological dad is Thunder Jack (James Coburn), a white man. Next thing he’s letting the dogs out (woof-woof) and learning to mush with this lovable team of snow-pooches. Rated PG and very safe for the whole family.
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Lantana, In a small Australian town taking its name from a plant whose exterior leaves conceal thick branches, so does it reflect the lives of a small group whose affairs and friendships seemed bonded yet pricked at. Marriages are held together by different things. For some they are held by kids, for others passion, but for Dr. Valerie Simmons (Barbara Hershey) and her husband (Geoffrey Rush) marriage is held together by grief of a dead child. Yet, all the storylines add up to one thing. Murder. Rated R for strong visuals, sex and adult situation. Case closed.
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Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe re-teams with his “Jerry Maguire” star Tom Cruise for this
psychological thriller. Cruise plays a contemporary Manhattan bachelor who appears to have it all inheriting his mogul daddy’s publishing house. He’s also got two women. One a femme fatale in Cameron Diaz, the other; Penelope Cruz. A roller coast ride movie with an R rating that makes Vanilla Sky anything but vanilla with explicit graphic sex and violence.