9 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“3 Nights in the Desert”
Reunions can be a tough sell. They’re breeding grounds for awkward interactions, whether it’s trying to remember an old friend’s name, or scooting by ancient acquaintances with your eyes glued to the ground to snag a mini-corndog. A reunion film that posits it...
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“The Humbling”
All the world's a stage for legendary actor Simon Axler, and he wants to get off. Played with no small amount of self-deprecating wit by the even more legendary Al Pacino, Simon has of late - but wherefore he knows not - lost all his mirth. Pushing 70, without...
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“Jupiter Ascending”
Jupiter Ascending is a film with all of the usual trappings of the Hero of a Thousand Faces narrative—an unremarkable underdog thrust into the great fire of destiny, with outcast advisors and monomaniacal villains peppered throughout the journey—rendered as so...
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“Lovesick”
“I should have gotten a haircut,” the mop-headed Luke Matheny said to uproarious laughter upon winning the 2011 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short for God of Love. That line exhibited the same kind of quirky allure that likely gained the whimsical, black...
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“Joanna”
Aneta Kopacz’s Joanna, which was just nominated for the Best Documentary -- Short Subject Oscar, may be one of the most intimate portraits of a mother-child relationship ever. Inspired by a hit blog by the late Joanna Sałyga, who documented her struggle with c...
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“Hard to Be a God”
A sickly child prince farts after nibbling on the exposed breast of a large bald woman. An intoxicated man gnaws on a leg of meat astride an ornate rocking horse. Nearby, another kicks a metal globe of Earth across a stone floor, past a bare ass bent over a ta...
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“Stinking Heaven”
A sober-living safe house is neither safe nor sober in Stinking Heaven, the fifth feature (and fourth in 3 years) from director Nathan Silver. The New York-based filmmaker’s wonderfully caustic sense of humor and fetish for familial and social dysfunction are ...
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“Amira & Sam”
The year is 2008. Bush is almost out of office, economic bubbles are still swelling, and in New York, two unlikely stars cross. Sam (Martin Starr) is an army veteran recently returned from the Middle East. Amira (Dina Shihabi) is an Iraqi immigrant who hawks D...
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“My Name is Hmmm…”
As a lifelong lover of cinema and patron to the likes of Harmony Korine, Gaspar Noé, and Claire Denis, it’s surprising that 73-year-old Agnès Troublé, a.k.a acclaimed fashion designer agnès b, wasn’t bitten by the filmmaking bug until now. Her debut feature, M...
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“Timbuktu”
Islam is a topic frequently viewed through a limited lens in contemporary cinema, particularly what is produced by and catered to North Americans. Such is not the case with Timbuktu, Abderrahmane Sissako’s first feature film in 7 years. For audiences accustome...
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