9 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“Maps to the Stars”
For a director who’s never shot a film in the States before, David Cronenberg surely wastes no energy to ease in to the process with his new effort, and aims for the heart from the get-go. In his uncanny Hollywood satire Maps to the Stars, everyone is haunted ...
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“Everly”
Based on her recent credits, Salma Hayek may be the last person anyone would expect to go out guns blazing. In the last few years, she’s starred in disposable junk ranging from both Grown-Ups films to Here Comes the Boom, provided vocals for Puss in Boots, and...
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“’71”
From In the Name of the Father to Bloody Sunday to Hunger, there’s no shortage of films willing to engage the Troubles in Northern Ireland, but Yann Demange’s ’71 might be the closest the political subgenre has come to full-blown action cinema. Essentially an ...
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“My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn”
When news of Liv Corfixen’s making-of documentary on her husband Nicolas Winding Refn’s critically lambasted Only God Forgives landed, there was a smattering of discontent over whether or not Refn was “deserving” enough of a (second, following Phie Ambo’s 2006...
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“Wild Canaries”
The opening two scenes of Lawrence Michael Levine’s Wild Canaries set the absurdist tone for the wry suspense and hilarity to come. In the first, a glove-clad man mysteriously enters the apartment of an old lady and eerily caresses her face; the setting porten...
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“Deli Man”
The very short history of documentaries with “_____Man” as a title format has nearly inspired a fully-fledged subgenre of their own. Films like Grizzly Man, Winnebago Man, and Big River Man evoke certain expectations of humanist character studies and sympathet...
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“Hot Tub Time Machine 2”
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 commits the two biggest sins of the dudebro comedy genre legitimized by the success of The Hangover series. The first is that this sequel exists at all. This film’s necessity comes courtesy of the uncanny way studios package their greed ...
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“Queen and Country”
In a pop-culture climate where gritty reboots, scathing irony, and winking meta-commentary are the norm, there’s something to be said for old-fashioned earnestness in contemporary cinema. John Boorman’s quasi-sequel Queen and Country is a game throwback to old...
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“Wild Tales”
Injustice is all around. There isn’t a single person who hasn’t been completely pushed over the edge by a routine, everyday unfairness at one point or the other. If our collective laments and releases of anger on various social media pages –towards even the mo...
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“McFarland, USA”
The folksy charm that once glowed like a halo around Kevin Costner has curdled over time into something harsh. Now, both in public and in film, he’s appeared grouchier and more cantankerous. Costner’s cinematic transition into a grump is fully realized in Disn...
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