Josh Bell
Story Archive
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A&E
Catching up with Scott Ian of Anthrax
Thursday, April 20, 2017 Lone band founder and guitarist/songwriter talks festivals, fans and DJ gigs at the Hard Rock.
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Screen
‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ returns with its same low-fi charm
Friday, April 14, 2017 Bad movies are in endless supply, and making fun of them never needs to stop.
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Screen
'Aftermath' is a monotonous, dour Arnold Schwarzenegger drama
Thursday, April 13, 2017 The Governator's post-politics career choices have been more interesting than the movies that result from them.
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'The Fate of the Furious' is always crashing in the same car
Thursday, April 13, 2017 We live in a world in which there are eight Fast and Furious movies. Those of us who’ve never seen the appeal must come to terms with that.
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Chris Evans fights for a precocious math whiz in 'Gifted'
Thursday, April 13, 2017 Director Marc Webb has upended clichés in the past. This time, not so much.
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‘Going in Style’ makes feeble jokes about the elderly
Thursday, April 6, 2017 Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin are old pros doing exactly what they’ve been hired to do.
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Anime feature ‘Your Name’ offers swooning supernatural romance
Thursday, April 6, 2017 The body-switching premise is only the setup for a larger story that touches on themes of destiny and longing.
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More Smurfs? The little blue annoyances return in ‘Lost Village’
Thursday, April 6, 2017 The storyline introduces a whole group of new merchandising-ready Smurfs when a hidden village of Smurf ladies pops up.
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Werner Herzog makes interesting mistakes with ‘Queen of the Desert’ and ‘Salt and Fire’
Wednesday, April 5, 2017 The two narrative movies being released in the U.S. this week prove that he might be better off sticking to documentaries at this point in his career.
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Screen
The movie industry tries to put on a brave face at CinemaCon
Wednesday, April 5, 2017 I saw several attempts to harness the trendy power of virtual reality, but my takeaway was that neither studios nor exhibitors understand what to do with VR.
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A&E
Five thoughts: Chris Stapleton at the Pearl (March 30)
Friday, March 31, 2017 His small band created a more powerful sound than many polished country ensembles.
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A&E
‘Land of Mine’ and ‘The Zookeeper’s Wife’ represent the latest variations on the World War II drama
Thursday, March 30, 2017 Both tell valuable stories in a way that mostly recalls other, more vital versions of stories from the same historical period.
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Kristen Stewart sees dead people in the confounding ‘Personal Shopper’
Thursday, March 30, 2017 Part ghost story, part glossy lifestyle porn, part murder mystery and part existential meditation, it never quite fits together.
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A&E
‘Ghost in the Shell’ replicates a sci-fi classic
Thursday, March 30, 2017 Even if the plot doesn’t hold together, the visuals just about make up for it.
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A&E
Drew Marvick is building a Vegas horror-movie empire
Thursday, March 30, 2017 Pool Party Massacre debuts at Eclipse April 1.
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Screen
Bad day at the office: ‘The Boss Baby’ deserves to be fired
Thursday, March 30, 2017 What the hell do Hollywood studios think kids like?
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‘The Discovery’ fumbles the big questions
Thursday, March 30, 2017 This sci-fi high concept seems like it might warrant a theatrical release, but its ambitions are small-scale.
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A&E
The Nevada Women’s Film Festival makes its mark in its third year
Wednesday, March 29, 2017 This year’s edition proved the organizers know how to put together an engaging and smartly curated event.
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Screen
‘Power Rangers’ fails as a movie and as a nostalgia trip
Thursday, March 23, 2017 It wants both to represent a dark, gritty take for the childhood fans who are now (allegedly) mature adults and to recapture the cheesy, campy tone of the original show.
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Shirley MacLaine prepares for the end in the phony ‘The Last Word’
Thursday, March 23, 2017 It’s barely a step above the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie she showed up in last year.
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'Wilson' explores the life of an off-putting weirdo
Thursday, March 23, 2017 Woody Harrelson throws himself into the title role but isn’t enough to hold together a disjointed movie.
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A&E
‘Power Rangers’ and ‘CHiPs’ are the latest results of Hollywood’s brand obsession
Thursday, March 23, 2017 Hollywood studios remain fixated on virtually any recognizable brand name.
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Noise
Concert review: Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell steps up for a receptive first-time Vegas audience
Sunday, March 19, 2017 Isbell spent the evening connecting with a much larger crowd than usually shows up in Vegas for alt-country and Americana acts.
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Screen
Marvel missteps with latest superhero series ‘Iron Fist’
Thursday, March 16, 2017 While Marvel’s three previous Netflix shows established distinctive worlds for their characters, Iron Fist is rote and uninspired.
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The Disney remake machine marches on with ‘Beauty and the Beast’
Thursday, March 16, 2017 As has been the case with all of Disney’s live-action updates, bigger does not equal better.
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‘Shots Fired’ tells a politically charged crime story
Thursday, March 16, 2017 Sanaa Lathan gives a strong performance as a veteran Department of Justice investigator sent to North Carolina to get to the truth behind a shooting.
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Low-key British drama ‘The Sense of an Ending’ keeps things too quiet
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 Jim Broadbent is always a welcome presence, so it’s refreshing to see the veteran character actor get a relatively rare leading role.
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A&E
Gorilla warfare: Humans disturb a monster’s habitat in 'Kong: Skull Island'
Wednesday, March 8, 2017 This is an all-out action movie, livelier and far more concise than Kong’s last big-screen outing from Peter Jackson in 2005.
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Teen drama ‘Before I Fall’ keeps repeating its basic life lessons
Thursday, March 2, 2017 Director Ry Russo-Young doesn’t bring any dramatic complexity to the story, but she does give it an appealing visual style.
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Period drama ‘A United Kingdom’ plays it safe
Thursday, March 2, 2017 The true story is fascinating, but the dramatization is boring.
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Goodbye, Wolverine: 'Logan' sends the X-Man out on a somber note
Thursday, March 2, 2017 Logan’s self-healing ability isn’t what it used to be, and Xavier’s mental state is breaking down.
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'Table 19' stumbles through a series of stale jokes
Thursday, March 2, 2017 The premise sounds like the idea for a mediocre network sitcom—possibly because it was.
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How Hugh Jackman made Wolverine his own
Thursday, March 2, 2017 He took a pay cut so that Logan could have the R rating filmmakers felt it needed.
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'Feud: Bette and Joan' explores a battle of Hollywood royalty
Wednesday, March 1, 2017 The latest season-by-season anthology series from Ryan Murphy is set to cover a different celebrity rivalry each season.
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Oscar-nominated documentary ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ powerfully examines race relations
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, James Baldwin’s words remain distressingly resonant as he describes resentment, anger and insensitivity blacks endure.
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‘Taken’ makes a failed transition to TV
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 For a show called ‘Taken,’ there’s shockingly little taking.
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Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize Winner comes to Netflix
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 ‘I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore’ marks a promising directorial debut for Macon Blair.
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Noise
Album review: Ryan Adams keeps making Ryan Adams music on ‘Prisoner’
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 Inspired by Adams’ divorce from Mandy Moore, most of the songs are melancholy and downbeat.
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ABC miniseries ‘When We Rise’ tells the story of the gay rights movement
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 The show is admirable, but as a drama, it falls short of its ambitions.
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‘Get Out’ taps into socially relevant fear
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 Its dark, gruesome horrors mark a departure for Key and Peele’s Jordan Peele.
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Noise
Concert review: A subdued AFI leaves fans wanting more
Monday, Feb. 20, 2017 The California goth-punk veterans are an efficient hard-rock machine, as they proved over the course of 70 minutes.
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International action movie ‘The Great Wall’ represents a failed compromise
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 Chock full of international stars and low-rent CGI, this money-driven compromise seems designed to please no one.
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Comedy ‘Fist Fight’ deserves to be knocked out
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 Charlie Day's Mr. Campbell is far from the only character in this movie who deserves a pop in the mouth.
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Horrors creep up in 'A Cure for Wellness'
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 The film has a carefully composed visual style that makes for an enveloping, unsettling experience.
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'Big Little Lies' picks apart the lives of the privileged
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 HBO's new drama doesn't need dragons or robots to achieve greatness.
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Boulder City’s Dam Short Film Festival smoothly expands its reach
Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017 New this year was an evening of special showcases before the first full day of the festival, including the entertaining Dealer, a linked collection of short films from Vegas filmmakers.
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‘Fifty Shades Darker’ manages to make kinky sex boring
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 Dakota Johnson is again playful and mischievous, at times coming across like she’s mocking the material.
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TV
Katherine Heigl returns in dull procedural ‘Doubt’
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 State of Affairs didn’t work out, so she’s back with probably the safest bet: a CBS crime show.
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Building a franchise: ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ continues the winning streak
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 What seemed likely to be a cynical corporate cash-in turned out to be a clever, funny, self-aware and heartfelt movie.
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Keanu takes out more bad guys in ‘John Wick: Chapter 2’
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 Add in some colorful underworld figures and you have the ingredients for an entertaining, ultraviolent and occasionally witty thriller.