Movie Reviews

A Very Long Engagement

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Jean-Pierre Jeunet exists to remind us to what creative heights movies can soar, and his latest work, Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles or A Very Long Engagement, is his most ambitious and best film to date. Viewers expecting the whimsy of Amelie will not be disappointed, but may be surprised — and even disturbed — […]

What Happened to Kerouac?

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The first thing you should know about What Happened to Kerouac? is that the film is not really going to answer its own question. The second thing is that this is a documentary by the faithful, for the faithful. Neither of these qualities is necessarily a negative, so long as each is taken into account […]

The Saddest Music in the World

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Upon hearing that I’d seen this movie, a friend of mine asked, “How is Isabella Rossellini in it?” All I could say was that she gave the finest portrayal of a double-amputee beer baroness outfitted with glass-encased, beer-filled legs that I could imagine. That should clue you in on the level of utter strangeness at […]

The Best of Resfest

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The Media Arts Project brings us another collection of “cutting edge” short films with The Best of Resfest. As is invariably the case with an assortment like this, the quality of the films is uneven; but here the winners far outdistance the losers in this fascinating set. Of the 11 shorts in the collection, only […]

Assault on Precinct 13

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I’m not a John Carpenter completist; movies like his Prince of Darkness and Ghosts of Mars took away any possible desire to become one. So I’ve never seen Carpenter’s original, 1976 version of Assault on Precinct 13, and therefore can’t compare this remake to its minor cult-classic parent, which was itself an uncredited reworking of […]

Are We There Yet?

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This spectacularly unfunny comedy expends four full reels questioning the wisdom of procreation, only to turn around and conclude it’s the greatest thing in life in the fifth. Now, that bewhiskered chestnut may still have a mile or two left in it under the right conditions. Those conditions, however, would require something better than an […]

The Corporation

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At 145 minutes, The Corporation somewhat overstays its welcome, but this is an important — and frequently infuriating — work about global corporations riding roughshod over the world in the name of commerce. As is often the case with films of this sort, the mouthpieces speaking in support of the practices being examined are frequently […]

Repatriation

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At 149 minutes, the film may be way too long, but the utter humanity of Kim Dong-won’s examination of the repatriation of long-incarcerated North Korean spies saves it from seeming as long as it is. Often heartbreaking as it looks at the lives of these elderly displaced persons, this powerful film takes the trouble to […]

Racing Stripes

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Now, I like a talking animal as much as the next fellow. After all, I grew up with Mr. Ed on the TV and reissues of Francis the Talking Mule movies on the big screen. So I’m not against the idea of a talking zebra in and of itself, and the one in this by-the-numbers […]

Mojados: Through the Night

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Extremely powerful and very tight documentary (63 minutes) by first-time filmmaker Tommy Davis, who spent 10 days following the journey of four illegal immigrants into the United States as they searched for nothing more or less than to be exploited as cheap labor. Unflinchingly real and never glamorous, the film presents a harrowing picture of […]

Million Dollar Baby

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According to nearly every early critical evaluation of this latest Clint Eastwood opus, I’m supposed to be on my knees at the altar of Clint. But I’m not. Where others found Eastwood’s movie just bubbling over with profundity, likening its maker to the Hemingway of film, all I found was a competently assembled collection of […]

In Good Company

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In the annual winter of our discontent at the movies, what a delight it is to find this little gem. The film proves that Paul Weitz’s About a Boy (co-directed by brother Chris, who here shares only co-producer status) wasn’t just some freak of nature from the American Pie boys. Without a great Nick Hornby […]

House of Flying Daggers

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Yes, this movie is stylish as all get out, and it features more than the requisite amount of astonishing martial arts derring-do and stupefying wire-work shenanigans. The settings are picturesque. The leads are appealing and attractive. But anyone expecting a film on the level of the director’s last work, Hero, is bound to be pretty […]

Final Solution

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Here’s another film that’s frankly too long for its own good (and this is the short version). But Final Solution still manages to be a powerful indictment of the violence between Muslims and Hindus in India, especially concerning the “mandate of hate” gained by the hard-line conservative Hindu political party, which helped put the Muslim […]

Elektra

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There’s a story — possibly apocryphal, but I choose to believe it — that director Josef von Sternberg, while on loan to MGM from Paramount and forced to make a movie he detested, ended up pointing his camera at the studio rafters and filming them because he found this more interesting than his assignment. Not […]

Deadline

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Perhaps no topic is more controversial than the death penalty, and this tight, 90-minute documentary from Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson (the latter worked as a cinematographer on Fahrenheit 911) tackles it head on. The film examines one specific aspect of capital punishment in Illinois, where a number of condemned murderers were later proved innocent […]

Condor: Axis of Evil

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A truly explosive — and potentially very controversial — documentary about Operation Condor. The name may sound like a 1970s spy yarn, but the reality is far more chilling than even the bleakest representatives of that genre. Condor was the code name given to a secret network of Latin American dictatorships working together to stamp […]

Coach Carter

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Comic/social critic Bill Cosby and northern California high-school basketball coach Ken Carter have much in common. Both men acquired great success and an equal amount of vilification. Coach Carter tells the true story of a man who wanted to make a difference in the lives of boys and did it, despite public outcry and a […]

White Noise

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The biggest question I have about this particular type of supernatural thriller is one that movies of this ilk never address: Why do these hauntings only happen to the more upscale among us? Do the spirits of those who have gone beyond the veil think that folks living in Architectural Digest photo-spread houses are the […]

The Accountant

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Here’s a rare opportunity to actually see one of those Academy Award-winning short films (from 2002) that mean absolutely nothing to 99 percent of the movie-going public when the envelope is opened at the Oscars. Moreover, here’s something even rarer: a chance to see a short from a 35mm print, on the big screen as […]

Intimate Strangers

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Intimate Strangers would be a good title for quite a number of films by Patrice Leconte; The Widow of St. Pierre and The Man on the Train come immediately to mind. His films have a tendency to focus on characters who become closely involved with one another, yet rarely interconnect enough to surpass their stranger […]