The Magnificent Seven (2016)

(M) ★★★★Director: Antoine Fuqua.Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard.Little known fact: The Wild West often celebrated racial diversity.EVERYONE loves a good team-up.Whether it’s Marvel’s Avengers, DC’s Justice League and Suicide Squad, cult ‘90s cartoon Captain Planet, or an NBA All-Star game, people enjoy watching uniquely talented...

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Storks

(G) ****Director: Nicholas Stoller & Doug Sweetland.Cast: (voices of) Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Anton Starkman, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Danny Trejo, Stephen Kramer Glickman.Parenting: not for the birds.DO parents still tell their children that babies come from storks? I thought that changed to cabbage patches back in the ‘80s. And wouldn’t there be a more modern update involving the internet...

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Pete's Dragon

(PG) ★★★★Director: David Lowery.Cast: Oakes Fegley, Bryce Dallas Howard, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, Robert Redford."Man, your dog is ugly. And fucking huge."WHEN Disney started digging into their treasure chest to find story nuggets to re-model, polish up and re-mount as live action films for the big screen, there was the typical burst of cynicism that comes with the announcement of reboots and remakes.But this heritage mining has yielded...

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The Secret Life Of Pets

(PG) ★★★Director: Chris Renaud.Cast: (voices of) Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan, Ellie Kemper, Bobby Moynihan, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Albert Brooks.It's a dog-meet-dog world.Ugh. I hate myself.WHAT do your pets get up to when you’re not around?It’s not a bad premise for a CG animated movie – it’s also not that far removed from the premise of the Godfather of CG animated movies Toy Story...

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Sully

(M) ★★Director: Clint Eastwood.Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney.The Moustached Middle Distance Staring Competition was in full swing.IT’S an odd truth of filmmaking, but sometimes incredible true stories don’t make for incredible films.Case in point is Eastwood’s take on the extraordinary “Miracle On The Hudson” – the 2009 incident in which Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles lost both engines of their...

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