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Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows, the new comic horror film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, is dedicated to the memory of Dan Curtis, who created the gothic soap opera which inspired it. Curtis was the most prolific and influential genre filmmaker working in television in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Marley

Marley, Kevin McDonald’s long, sometimes detailed, but fluid and often engrossing documentary has established several things by the time it ends. Most obviously, it amply demonstrates—if any demonstration was still needed—that its titular reggae icon was one of the very most gifted, original, and riveting popular musicians of the last half-century or so. In his native Jamaica, and eventually in North America, Europe, and Africa, Bob Marley was the object of fervent admiration to millions, not only for his innovative, infectious and often deeply impactive music but also for his liberationist messages.

Keyhole

Guy Maddin describes this as his first exercise in pure narrative filmmaking. What a kidder. Granted, the Canadian director has always been more interested in recreating old movie tropes and investigating the workings of memory than in storytelling. But even by his standard, which has grown increasingly obscure even as his cult has grown, Keyhole is a difficult film to make conclusions about. Even the title seems to suggest that one should only expect to get a glimpse of what is going on. (The screenplay is credited to Maddin and his regular collaborator, George Toles, Buffalo native and brother of cartoonist Tom Toles.)



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