7 years ago
Featured (10 posts found)
NYFF Review: “Steve Jobs”
Early in Steve Jobs, the late Apple mastermind played by Michael Fassbender defines the purpose of his company: “Our job is to tell the customers what they want.” Underneath the famous “Think Different” catchphrase that accompanied the classic 1984-style Super...
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NYFF Review: “Where to Invade Next”
Just the mention of Michael Moore is enough to send some viewers into spasms of protest. The Oscar-winning documentarian has a history of provoking the right side of the political aisle with films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine. Moore has incur...
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Fantastic Fest Review: “The Witch”
Forms of storytelling never really die – the functions they serve simply migrate and reappear somewhere else. The folk tale is one such manner of expression that seems rather obsolete in the modern world, not yielding any overtly major works in the past two ce...
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“Addicted to Fresno” Has Surprisingly Little to Say
Nothing about Jamie Babbit’s Addicted to Fresno sounds bad on paper. Babbit has helmed episodes of Girls, Married, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine in her career, while her partner, Karey Dornetto, has penned installments of Portlandia and vintage Arrested Development; ...
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Modern Love in “The Honeymoon Killers”
The Honeymoon Killers is the kind of title that hints at sensational thrills, a promise true crime movies usually fulfill. The genre enables audiences to engage in voyeuristic pleasures; it reminds them that the terrible scenes they are witnessing are not mere...
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“The Walk” Is An Astonishing Spectacle
For acrophobics, The Walk will be an exercise in sadism. Director Robert Zemeckis’ camera caresses every inch of the Twin Towers, leering straight down into wide open spaces from 110 stories above the greatest city in the world. As master of all it surveys, th...
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“The Walk” and The Role of the Critic
I don't usually ask questions at press conferences. I'm too often crippled with self-doubt and assume that my question is not worth asking. But following the New York Film Festival press screening of The Walk, I couldn't resist. I raised my hand and spoke into...
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Fantastic Fest Review: “Green Room”
Jeremy Saulnier’s breakout film Blue Ruin depicted violence as an elemental force; a practically innate disposition of the human condition. In that spin on a classic revenge tale, Saulnier metes out precious little information on the characters hell-bent on de...
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NYFF Review: “Mia Madre”
Mia Madre, the latest film from Cannes festival darling, Nanni Moretti, is a companion piece of sorts to his 2001 Palm d’Or-winner, The Son’s Room. That film, which dealt with the loss of a child, is the more emotionally successful affair; a parent burying the...
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“Moonrise Kingdom” Charts Wes Anderson’s Cozy World
There are movies we love and then there are movies we want to inhabit. Certain special films contain diegetic universes so immersive, so rich and seductively real, that the desire to be consumed and placed into their little worlds is a constant from viewer to ...
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