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Debuting as a video game in the early ’90s, Mortal Kombat became both popular and notorious for its violent and gory death scenes. This renown led to feature films in 1995 and 1997; onward to TV shows, both animated and live-action; comic books and other incarnations; to a 2021 movie reboot; and now to a sequel, Mortal Kombat II. Not being a video game guy, I was unfamiliar with the franchise when I saw the reboot. Having no...

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  “May you live in interesting times” is supposedly an ancient Chinese curse. Well, 2025 has unquestionably been an interesting year. A curse that may be in real life, but this was also an interesting year in movies, and that’s less accursed.   So, let’s get ’25, and the first quarter of the 21st century, in the rear view with that traditional annual movie-critic indulgence, the Top 10 List. Here are the 10 movies that...

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Opened over the weekend: Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s tale of twin brothers Smoke and Stack, back from Capone’s Chicago and trying to start up a juke joint in rural Mississippi in the early ’30s. They have the building, and they have the talent for the grand opening, a blues guitar and vocal prodigy named Sammie. They have the booze, the catfish, everything. But they haven’t counted on the party being crashed by singing vampires. Both of...

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At this writing, movie theaters are closed across the Valley. Time for what may prove a long season of movie nights on the couch. I wanted to make some video suggestions, but my overarching suggestion: Watch your favorites. Watch movies that make you happy. For me, these include the original Psycho, Sunset Boulevard, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Them!, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (despite the “Bring out yer dead!”...

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Opening wide this weekend: The Hunt—There’s been a fair amount of huffy fake outrage in conservative media over this shocker, in which vile liberal elites kidnap patriotic ‘Muricans and hunt them like animals. It’s roughly the zillionth variation on The Most Dangerous Game, and it may be the most imbecilic. “Snowflakes” caricatured with the subtlety of a Taki rack up a body count of “deplorables” only slightly less stereotypical. The truth, of course, is the movie...