Josh Bell
Story Archive
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Film
Basking in cinephile paradise at LA’s AFI Fest
Monday, Nov. 17, 2014 Weekly's film editor takes in a weekend of flicks at this year's fest, including a vampire mockumentary from Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi.
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Film
Film review: ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ is even more painful than the original
Friday, Nov. 14, 2014 The effort comes across as desperate and sad, with meager laughs and sloppy storytelling.
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Music
Kiss delivers the expected hit parade in its Vegas residency launch
Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 There were constant explosions, huge video screens and music, although not as much of it as you might expect from a band whose catalog spans four decades.
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Film
Film review: 'Laggies' is a clever twist on the slacker story
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 Who knew Keira Knightley could play such an effective woman-child?
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Film
Film review: 'Big Hero 6' is little more than a bland Disney adventure
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 It seems tailor-made for an animated TV series.
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Film
'Interstellar' combines sci-fi spectacle with hokey storytelling
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 Interstellar turns out to be less hard-headed than soft-hearted, a sci-fi epic about how, like, all you need is love, man.
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television
TV review: HBO's 'Olive Kitteridge' just drowns in misery
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 Seriously, can someone maybe smile once in a while?
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Music
Taylor Swift conquers a new genre on '1989'
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 The country-ish singer-songwriter goes completely pop on her latest release.
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Film
Skip the movie and read the book with 'Horns'
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 A pariah accused of murdering his girlfriend wakes up with two devilish horns growing out of his head.
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Film
'Listen Up Philip' mines comedy gold from awful behavior
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 Alex Ross Perry's film is reminiscent of Woody Allen and the recent Greenberg.
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Film
Jake Gyllenhaal is brilliant in the unsettling 'Nightcrawler'
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 Nightcrawler isn’t a heavy-handed media satire. It’s a character study about a truly reprehensible character.
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Film
Film review: 'Dear White People' is often funny, but tries too hard
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 Still, why can't more movies try to be this ambitious?
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Film
Film review: Revenge thriller 'John Wick' gets by on impressive style
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 The plot is simplistic in the extreme and more than a little silly, but John Wick is delivered with style and energy.
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Film
TV review: 'Constantine' is a generic approach to supernatural drama
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 The third new fall drama based on a DC Comics character, Constantine is neither as fun as The Flash nor as grandiose as Gotham.
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Film
The fifth—and possibly final—PollyGrind triumphed over adversity
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 f this is indeed PollyGrind’s last year, it was a hell of a swan song.
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Film
‘The Green Prince’ is a gripping espionage documentary
Friday, Oct. 17, 2014 The flick focuses on interviews with two subjects: An operative of Israel’s Shin Bet security service and the son of a principal leader of Palestinian organization Hamas.
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Entertainment
Dave Grohl gets overly ambitious with HBO series 'Sonic Highways'
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 You might want to just listen to the soon-to-be-released album instead.
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Entertainment
Local fans bring superhero Nightwing to life online
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 The biggest complaints from fans? It's too short.
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Entertainment
Film review: 'The Book of Life' takes all the life out of a rich cultural tradition
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 And the animation sucks, too!
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Film
The festival must go on: Bizarre film fest PollyGrind returns
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 This year's installment is packed with unique underground films, including plenty of horror and exploitation movies.
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Screen
The next best thing? New Yahoo series features a fictional Vegas-based pro sports team
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 Sin City Saints arrives later this year.
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Film
Film review: Overwrought emotions spoil 'The Judge'
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 The strain for respectability can be felt in virtually every moment of David Dobkin’s hokey dramedy.
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Film
Film review: 'Alexander' is very, very, very mediocre
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 Based on a great children's book—and that's about it.
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Film
Film review: 'Dracula Untold' fails at both horror and spectacle
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 And this is supposed to launch a franchise? Good luck, guys.
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television
TV review: Showtime's 'The Affair' takes its subject matter very seriously
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 Never has the rush of a new sexual relationship been such an oppressive bummer.
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television
TV review: CW's 'Jane the Virgin'
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 An endearing cross between Gilmore Girls and Devious Maids, the CW show is better than anything else the networks have offered up this fall.
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Film
Film review: Fincher racks up another riveting movie with 'Gone Girl'
Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014 It contains some fantastic performances to boot.
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Film
Film review: 'Annabelle' is a completely unnecessary prequel
Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014 Stop with The Conjuring. Trust us.
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Entertainment
TV review: The chemistry on 'A to Z' can't overpower its limited gimmick
Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014 With an inherently short shelf life (each episode is named for a letter of the alphabet, implying a maximum of 26 episodes), there’s little room for surprises or originality.
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A&E
'The Flash' doesn’t run from its comic book origins
Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014 For comic book fans tired of TV superheroes who are barely super, this may be just what they’re looking for.
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television
TV review: Amazon's winning 'Transparent' is an uncompromising look at a challenging subject
Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 And Jeffrey Tambor steals the show (big surprise!).
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television
TV review: 'How to Get Away With Murder' revels in hysteria from the get-go
Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 Let's put it this way: It makes Scandal look tame.
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Film
Film review: 'The Boxtrolls'
Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 The film further prooves that Laika is the Pixar of stop-motion animation.
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Film
Film review: ‘My Old Lady’ awkwardly mixes comedy and drama
Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 The movie, starring Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith, fails to make either mode entirely convincing.
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Film
Film review: Kevin Smith’s 'Tusk' is an ambitious failure
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014 It's an incredibly awkward mix of horror and comedy.
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Film
Film review: Lame 'Maze Runner' ultimately goes nowhere
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014 Can we all just admit that YA-based entertainment is really getting old?
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television
TV review: 'Black-ish'
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014 "It’s more engaged with meaningful issues than the other “modern” sitcom that airs right before it."
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Film
Film review: 'A Walk Among the Tombstones'
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014 The Liam Neeson film is quiet, unpretentious and ultimately pretty effective.
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television
TV review: 'Gotham' explores Batman's early days
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014 Do we really need a Batman-focused police procedural?
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Film
‘Dolphin Tale 2’ is contrived and crowd-pleasing
Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014 Looking for some more cute dolphin antics? It delivers.
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television
TV review: Diseased teens spout platitudes in 'Red Band Society'
Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014 The dialogue is self-consciously quirky, except when it’s manipulatively sentimental.
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Film
Film review: The trilogy based on Ayn Rand’s 'Atlas Shrugged' ends with a whimper
Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014 The final installment fulfills its function of flattering the worldview of Rand’s fans and followers, while completely failing as a piece of narrative cinema.
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Film
A strong cast anchors the low-key 'Life of Crime'
Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014 This Elmore Leonard adaption does a better job of translating his work than plenty of other movies have.
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Film
Local filmmakers the Thompson brothers deliver another charmer
Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014 Strip headliner Gregory Popovich and his menagerie of pet performers play fictionalized versions of themselves.
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A&E
2014 Fall A&E Guide: Film
Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014 The Hunger Games returns -- and so does Dumb and Dumber.
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television
2014 Fall A&E Guide: TV
Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014 Here are 10 shows with some amount of promise, plus two old ones to keep watching.
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A&E
Disappearing act: Miniseries 'Houdini' is an unremarkable biopic
Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2014 Unlike its subject, who performed feats that people remembered their whole lives, the History Channel program is entirely forgettable.
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A&E
Film review: 'Land Ho!'
Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2014 The Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz directed flick is a ramshackle travelogue about two senior citizens taking a vacation to Iceland.
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Film
Film review: Gleeson's wonderful performance anchors the otherwise uneven 'Calvary'
Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014 Too many one-dimensional characters. Not good.