Angelina Jolie

The Bone Collector

  • Title: The Bone Collector
  • IMDb: link

Feeling every bit the 90s movie it is, The Bone Collector throws Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie together in a crime thriller based on Jeffery Deaver’s novel. Washington stars as brilliant, but suicidal, quadriplegic homicide detective Lincoln Rhyme who sees wasted potential in Officer Amelia Donaghy (Jolie) who takes the kind of initiative he, but not her superiors, appreciate in preserving a crime scene. Not initially pleased with her reassignment, Amelia works as Rhyme’s legs in the field helping to track down a serial killer leaving obscure clues and removing bones from his victims.

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Gone in 60 Seconds

  • Title: Gone in 60 Seconds
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Thursday takes us back to 2000 when former car thief Memphis Raines (Nicolas Cage) is brought out of retirement to put together a crew to prevent his idiot younger brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) from being killed after botching a major job for the sociopathic Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston). Calling on his old friends, and incorporating Kip’s new ones, the crew attempts to steal 50 cars in one night, without getting caught by the police (Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant), and deliver them all to Calitri on the docks.

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Top Ten Movies of 2024

2024 wasn’t as top-heavy as some years, but there was a wide variety of good movies. Here’s a look back at my favorites from those movies I was lucky enough to view this year. Despite my best efforts there will always be some not included here if access was limited, the film wasn’t released in time for review before the end of 2024, the film wasn’t made available for awards consideration, or I simply ran out of time. Likely some of those other films you’ll see reviews for later in 2025 but they are not in consideration here. Here then, is my list of the best movies of 2024.

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Maria

  • Title: Maria
  • IMDb: link

Maria explores the final days of renown opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) looking back on her life in a self-medicated haze that blurs fantasy and reality in her quest to rediscover the voice she lost years ago. The standouts here are Jolie’s performance, for which she trained 7 months to learn to sing opera (a mix of both Jolie and Callas’ voices are used throughout the film), and the film’s amazing look courtesy of cinematographer Edward Lachman, set decoration by Sandro Piccarozzi, and costumes by Massimo Cantini Parrini.

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Hackers

  • Title: Hackers
  • IMDb: link

Newly released on 4K, 1995’s Hackers is a very silly movie about a group of “innocent” high school hackers who despite breaking multiple laws throughout the film are the victims and heroes of the plot when another hacker (Fisher Stevens) decides to frame them for his crimes. The film stars Jonny Lee Miller as a child prodigy banned from using computers until his 18th birthday where he returns to the world of computers and takes up with a group of local hackers which include the hyper-competitive girl (Angelina Jolie) he has a crush on.

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