Lights Camera Jackson

Movie Reviews, Entertainment News and Views from Lights Camera Jackson

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‘Rules Don’t Apply’ Review

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The story of how “Rules Don’t Apply” got made is worthy of its own movie. Writer, director, producer and star Warren Beatty (now 79) had wanted to portray Howard Hughes’s life on the big screen for 40 years, ever since he encountered Hughes at a Beverly Hills hotel in 1973. Beatty signed a contract with Warner Bros. […]
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‘Moana’ Review

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In Disney’s “Moana”, the title heroine sings a song called “How Far I’ll Go” (which is performed in its entirety twice and reprised two more times). In it, there’s a line that perfectly sums-up this movie: “Everything is by design”. With this latest effort, Disney shows it’s till stuck in the 90s, serving-up a formulaic, […]
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‘La La Land’ Review

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J.K. Simmons called his “Whiplash” writer/director, Damien Chazelle, “The Boy Wonder”, during his Best Supporting Actor Awards Season run two years ago. Just as he did with that intense indie, the now 31-year-old Chazelle showcases his incredible talent for visually captivating storytelling with the dazzling, “La La Land”. This musical romance was originally set for a […]
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‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ Review

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Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” and Kathryn Bigelow’s double-header of “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty” all all examined the effects of the brutality, intensity and devastation of war on the modern American soldier (and Mel Gibson also did it masterfully in the recent “Hacksaw Ridge”). In “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk”, two-time Oscar-winning Best […]
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‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ Review

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I thought the “Harry Potter” phenomenon was FINALLY over with 2011’s satisfying conclusion – “Deathly Hallows Part 2”. But Warner Bros. needed a new, non-superhero franchise. So, with the wave of a magic wand, spinoff prequel “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” has appeared. Although this is based on just one J.K. Rowling book, […]
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‘Arrival’ Review

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“Been There, Done That” is the best way to describe the “extraterrestrials” come to Earth” genre. Director Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners”, “Sicario”) attempts to put a new spin on it with “Arrival”. This is a tough movie to describe in detail – largely because, on the surface, there isn’t much to describe. 12 mysterious shell-shaped objects […]
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‘Doctor Strange’ Review

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Doctor, Doctor: Gimme the news – I got a bad case of… Doctor Strange. This is the latest in a recent series of Marvel mistakes. Benedict Cumberbatch is completely miscast as the easily unlikable Dr. Stephen Strange. He’s an egotistical surgeon doing breakthrough work in the area of nerve regeneration – who’s also had an […]
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‘Hacksaw Ridge’ Review

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Say what you will about Mel Gibson – the guy can really tell a story on screen. “Hacksaw Ridge” is the first film Gibson has directed in a decade. As an actor, all of his recent comeback projects, including roles in “Edge of Darkness”, “The Beaver” and “The Expendables 3”, have been major failures. But […]
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‘Loving’ Review

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The story of Richard and Mildred Loving is an incredibly important one. The Lovings were an interracial couple, living in Virginia in 1958, who were arrested following their marriage, which was illegal in that part of the South at the time. They were then forced to leave Virginia (or stay and go to prison), and for the next […]
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‘Trolls’ Review

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While listening to Justin Timberlake’s latest smash-hit “Can’t Stop the Feeling” for the first time six months ago, I had a “feeling”, that the movie it would be featured in was in good hands. As Executive Music Producer and lead voice actor, Timberlake breaks the glass ceiling on the limits of animation with DreamWorks’ answer […]
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