Films starring Brad Pitt
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (R)
It’s a well-known fact: the cinematic year of 2007 was one for the ages. Those fortunate enough to live through it remember the year fondly; those who, like myself, thrived at that point on a steady diet of Veggie Tales and Disney’s Homeward Bound, admire it from afar in wistful retrospect. In perhaps the best […]
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Karma sans Justice: The Big Short (R)
Nerds are the last to finish first, but, if The Big Short is to be believed, that might be just about the best time to get ahead. Nerds have a sense of this. They might fall behind the jocks on the sporting fields and have all of the humiliating wedgies in high school; they might […]
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Fury (R)
The most memorable character in Fury is Don Collier, or “Wardaddy,” the weathered commander of a tank – the eponymous Fury – in the final days of World War II. Wardaddy (Brad Pitt, exceptional in a role that nevertheless falls short of his best work) is a man of contradictions: he emanates grim, detached pragmatism […]
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A River Runs Through It (PG)
Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It is set in the early 1900’s “at the junction of great trout rivers in Missoula, Montana” against the backdrop of the Bitterroot Mountains in the northwest of the state. It would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful setting for such a story, and it is to the […]
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Fight Club (R)
Note To Readers: This review contains a frank investigation of a perverse film, and necessarily must describe some of the perverse ideas of the film. Given the lasting import and influence of the film, the editor commends it to readers who are old enough to have seen the film. Younger readers who have not seen […]
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12 Years A Slave (R)
It is fitting that the hero of 12 Years a Slave is called Solomon. I thought often of Ecclesiastes while watching the film. Few books in Scripture are responsible for more intellectual patricide than Ecclesiastes; begin reading any commentary on the work, and the first comment most authors feel compelled to make is something like, […]
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The Counselor (R)
Ridley Scott doesn’t do feel-good movies. Ridley Scott does movies scored with the sounds of desperate women warbling in Middle Eastern tones. Even when Ridley Scott decides to make a feel-good movie, he still uses Russell Crowe, as if to say, “Not so fast.” Early on in his career, Scott tapped into something profoundly mythic […]