John Powers
Stories
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Still thinking about the Louvre? 'The Mastermind' is about a museum heist gone awry
An unemployed cabinet maker robs the local art museum — then finds himself plunged into a world of cops and gangsters and life on the run. The Mastermind is a sad movie that gets stronger as it goes.
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'Blue Moon' is an aching comedy about a genius on the slide
Ethan Hawke stars as lyricist Lorenz Hart on the night his former writing partner, Richard Rodgers, debuts his hit musical Oklahoma!. Blue Moon offers a canny take on professional jealousy.
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Every moment pops in the nuclear thriller 'A House of Dynamite'
A single nuclear warhead, of unknown origin, is heading toward the U.S. mainland in Kathryn Bigelow's new Netflix film. It's an unnerving scenario — but it's also thrilling to watch.
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'The Lowdown' isn't just a good show. It's a good hang
Ethan Hawke plays a bookstore owner who moonlights as a muckraking reporter in Tulsa, Okla. Though The Lowdown occasionally meanders or misfires, every episode of the FX series is bracingly alive.
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'Mussolini: Son of the Century' is a flashy take on how dictatorships happen
A new eight-part series by MUBI chronicles the ferocious rise of the Italian dictator. While the show is a bit too eager to make Mussolini entertaining, the story it tells couldn't be any more timely.
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'Butterfly' is a frustrating spy thriller with a few too many twists
Daniel Dae Kim stars in a thriller about a spy who comes out of hiding to save his long-lost daughter. But instead of personal revelations, the series gets mired in plot twists and shoot-outs.
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A dogged reporter takes on a mysterious cabal in 'The Diary of Lies'
Philip Miller's sinister thriller is set in a Great Britain that's lost its bearings. But even when she's terrified, fictional journalist Shona Sandison will always risk everything to get the story.
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'Code of Silence' is a twisty crime series with an unsentimental take on deafness
A new BritBox series centers on a deaf woman who works in a police station, and whose lip-reading abilities come in handy when the precinct needs help interpreting surveillance footage.
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You'll find a gripping new internet thriller in the 'Cloud'
The internet and its discontents run wild in a new film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a prolifically offbeat Japanese filmmaker who's spent the last four decades putting subversive spins on traditional genres.
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'Endling' is a shape-shifting debut that takes on heavy themes with humor
Maria Reva's virtuosic novel starts out as a straightforward story about a Ukrainian biologist, but morphs into a comic take on war, the mail-order bride business and the plight of snails.
