7 years ago
Featured (10 posts found)
“Truth” Is Just Embarrassing
The public could stand to have a better idea of actually went on with the 2004 60 Minutes scandal over George W. Bush’s military service record. The sequence of embarrassments centered around the news program’s story, released just two months before a presiden...
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Interview: Hou Hsiao-Hsien of “The Assassin”
It has been 8 years since the great Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien’s last feature (the Paris-set Flight of the Red Balloon, starring Juliette Binoche), but The Assassin shows no lessening of his formidable artistic grip. In its patient long takes, impecca...
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Interview: Davis Guggenheim of “He Named Me Malala”
In just the time from seeing He Named Me Malala at a press screening in early September to talking with director Davis Guggenheim in early October, the documentary has already become more urgent. Certainly, the Syrian refugee crisis calls out for a humane resp...
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Watching “Aladdin” on Blu-ray Is Looking At A Whole New World
At the movies, 1992 was the year of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, of Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans. But the biggest movie of the year was Aladdin, outgrossing even the widely anticipated sequel to Home Alone. It’s not u...
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Interview: Eric Goldberg of “Aladdin”
You may not know Eric Goldberg by his name, but you know him by his work. Since 1990, Goldberg has been one of the preeminent names in feature hand-drawn animation. He served as animation director on Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), directed two segments (...
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“Bridge of Spies” Is Snarky and Suspenseful
Bridge of Spies is the true story of James Donovan, an insurance claims lawyer tasked with negotiating the release of a military pilot shot down over enemy lines during the height of the Cold War. Directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay assist from Joe...
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“Trash” Is Almost Predictably Lousy
First, a brief moment to note the pun-tastic woes of Rooney Mara, co-starring in two critically disliked films opening on the same day, helpfully titled Pan and Trash. These folks make it awfully easy for us sometimes. As a pal pointed out, this is actually t...
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“Knock Knock” Is Funnier Than It Is Scary
In Eli Roth’s home-invasion thriller Knock Knock, Keanu Reeves plays Evan Webber, a wholesome husband and dad who temporarily loses his sanity and indulges in temptation. The film is reasonably suspenseful at a decently sustained pace, but it’s more amusing th...
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“Pan” Is A Cut Above Other Fantasy Reimaginings
J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan already had one notorious reimagining in Steven Spielberg’s Hook, and the existence of Joe Wright’s new “prequel” immediately conjures the specter of the dreadful Oz the Great and Powerful: both involve a contrived origin story about th...
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“The Forbidden Room” Is A Freewheeling Achievement
Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s The Forbidden Room is a tribute to a film that never existed. More accurately, it is a supercut of various fictional films—a stitched-together collage of associative links and vague thematic consistency. From one point of view, th...
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