Co-directors/co-adaptors Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, and Andy Wachowski lend an imaginative set of cinematic wings to author David Mitchell’s fanciful, literate, elliptical, time-traveling novel, and the result is irresistible.
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Well written Italian psychological thriller follows the trying adventures of a hotel chambermaid (Kseniya Rappoport) who gets mixed up with an ex-cop (Filippo Timi) and a home invasion/stolen art racket in the city of Torino.
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The further adventures of Sweden’s avenging computer hacker/crime fighter Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace, still magnetic) elaborate on Lisbeth’s stressful past, as she and journalist Mikael Blomkvist (actor Michael Nyqvist) re-team to stop an international sex trafficker (Georgi Staykov) and his giant blond bodyguard (Micke Spreitz).
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Nothing terribly wrong with David Fincher’s English-language remake of the first episode of the Stieg Larsson-penned Swedish trilogy about female avenger Lisbeth Salander and her war on men who hate women.
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Well-written, appropriately sour modern crime story shows what happens when a wheeling-dealing Los Angeles criminal-case attorney (Matthew McConaughey) lets himself get talked into defending a diabolical client — a rich, arrogant playboy (Ryan Phillippe) charged with raping and beating a prostitute.
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Easygoing French murder mystery casts a spell, as a Parisian crime novelist (Jean-Paul Rouve) tries to unravel the murder of a platinum blond Marilyn Monroe lookalike (Sophie Quinton, in flashback) in the snowy town of Mouthe, aka “Little Siberia” in the mountains of Jura.
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Holmes (Robert Downey Jr., never better) and his bosom companion Dr. Watson (Jude Law, along for the ride) journey hectically to France, Germany, and Switzerland on the trail of evil genius Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) and his henchmen, who are trying to stir up World War I twenty years too early.
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All the ingredients come together in a bracing adaptation of the John le Carré Cold War spy novel about the search for a Soviet mole inside the British secret service, circa 1973.
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Iffy sci-fi adventure imagines what would happen if darkness literally took over the world one night — creeping shadows engulf humans until they disappear, survivors cluster around fading artificial light sources, etc. The thrill goes out of writer Anthony Jaswinski’s Twilight Zone-style story long before the closing credits, but director Brad Anderson (Transsiberian) gets okay performances from Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, and juvie Jacob Latimore as Detroit residents fighting a holding action against the all-devouring gloom.
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Some Oakland politicians and groups are pointing to research by UC Berkeley faculty as proof that the city needs to add hundreds of police officers, but other studies contradict that conclusion.
Some Oakland politicians and groups are pointing to research by UC Berkeley faculty as proof that the city needs to add hundreds of police officers, but other studies contradict that conclusion.