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MJ @ THE MOVIES
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REVIEW. SORRY, BABY: A Funny (sort of), Unapologetic (in an offbeat way) Look at Pain and Healing.
Something bad happened to Agnes (Eva Victor), recently hired as a full-time English professor (the youngest in the department's history)...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jul 246 min read
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REVIEW. SUPERMAN: Can "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" Fly in a MAGA-Challenged World?
Superman, Mel Pasos (1962), De Young Museum (permanent collection) Let's face it. When Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster created America's...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jul 1310 min read
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REVIEW. EEPHUS: A Eulogy for Baseball and the Passing of time.
It's Sunday, October 16, somewhere in a small New England town (the movie was filmed at Soldiers Field in Douglas, Massachusetts)...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jul 16 min read
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MJ's View. 10 BEST MOVIES of the 21st CENTURY...that I've seen (so far).
Okay, I voted. The New York Times is compiling a list of the "100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," according to select directors,...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 2815 min read
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REVIEW. In THE LIFE OF CHUCK, Life's a Bitch, Then You Die...Only Backwards.
[Life is] full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly . - Woody Allen, Manhattan...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 228 min read
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REVIEW. THE MATERIALISTS: Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough...But It Should Be, Shouldn't It?
Early on in writer-director Celine Song's sophomore feature film (her first was 2023's Oscar-nominated Past Lives ), top marriage broker...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 157 min read
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REVIEW. THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND: Three stanzas in search of a melody.
From left, Tom Basden, Tim Key and Carey Mulligan Some of you who have known me for awhile are painfully aware that my favorite kind of...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 85 min read
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REVIEW. Despite a Cavalcade of Real-Life Masterpieces and a Parade of Stellar Cameos, THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME is More Contrived Style Than Intriguing Substance.
Benicio Del Toro (front left), Michael Cera (far back) and Mia Threapleton (front right) Somewhere in the world c1950, multi-millionaire...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 65 min read
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MJ's VIEW. FIELD OF DREAMS: IN CONCERT Goes the Distance With the Romance of Baseball and Life.
NOTE: This blog post is not a review of 1989's classic film, Field of Dreams or of the musical quality of the Chicago Symphony...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 311 min read
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REVIEW. JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE. So what else is new?
The first film version of a Jane Austen novel was Pride and Prejudice back in 1940, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. Then...

MaryAnn Janosik
Jun 17 min read
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REVIEW. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING. Tom saves the world (again), and a good time is had by all...unless you're acrophobic.
SPOILER ALERT : There are a few references that may lessen the experience for diehard MI fans. Years ago (2009, to be precise), I got...

MaryAnn Janosik
May 248 min read
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MJ's View. "Tutti, Tutti, Tutti!" Pope Francis and Pop Culture.
Pope Francis. He was the first (and, so far, only) pope to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine (January 28, 2014). He was the...

MaryAnn Janosik
Apr 2612 min read
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REVIEW: "Sinners" is a mesmerizing, wickedly good, genre-crossing triumph.
Sinners Poster. Just the movie we needed on a spring Easter weekend: a Black vampire horror musical that spans six decades in the 20th...

MaryAnn Janosik
Apr 215 min read
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MJ's Extra: "Sunny Afternoon" brightens Chicago's Shakespeare Theater.
My introduction to the music of Ray Davies and the Kinks came from a cover track included on Gary Lewis & the Playboys' 1965 album, This...

MaryAnn Janosik
Apr 69 min read
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MJ's View: Fifty years later, Richard Lester's "The Three Musketeers" is still one for all.
The Musketeers: Porthos (Frank Finley), Athos (Oliver Reed), D'Artagnan (Michael York) and Aramis (Richard Chamberlain) NOTE: News of...

MaryAnn Janosik
Mar 308 min read
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REVIEW. BLACK BAG: James Bond for the Mensa Crowd, but in a good way.
The first time I entered writer-director Steven Soderbergh's fast-paced, upscale urban world was thirty-five years ago when I watched his...

MaryAnn Janosik
Mar 235 min read
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MJ's Oscars After Party: "The Good, the Bad and the Chalamet."
Did you stay awake? Last night's Oscar show was another hodge podge of fun, whimsy, tedium and surprises, and clocked in at 4 hours, 19...

MaryAnn Janosik
Mar 38 min read
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MJ's Oscar Picks 2025: Part Deux. "Short movies got no reason..."
With apologies to Randy Newman and all those wonderful filmmakers who work in the non-feature format, we have another eclectic collection...

MaryAnn Janosik
Feb 245 min read
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MJ's Oscar Picks 2025: The Wildfire Edition
Based on last year's response to "I'm Just Ken," I'm following up with another Oscar-related parody. Not one of this year's Original Song...

MaryAnn Janosik
Feb 2468 min read
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REVIEW. "As Demi Moore Uses THE SUBSTANCE, Death Becomes Her."
NOTE: Spoilers may occur, otherwise the review wouldn't make sense. But, given the date of this posting, some of you may have already...

MaryAnn Janosik
Feb 16 min read
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