9 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” A Socially Conscious But Slightly Trivial Blockbuster
Following Tim Burton’s widely disliked 2001 remake of the original Planet of the Apes (1968), no one really expected much from Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 addition to the franchise, titled Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Yet, to almost consensual delight, Wyatt’s film...
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A Conversation On “Land Ho!”
Editor's note: The following is a conversation on "Land Ho" between two of our Boston film critics, Sean Burns and Jake Mulligan. Please enjoy this not-so-standard form of criticism.
Jake Mulligan: We’re here to talk about Land Ho! today, which should ...
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“Boyhood”: Me, You, and Everyone We Know and Love
This tweet from Mark Cousins recently popped up on my Facebook feed: “I almost never re-watch films, but I want to see Richard Linklater's Boyhood every year of my life." The Scottish director was not the first in the movie's unanimous choir of praisers; he si...
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“Closed Curtain” Marks A Harrowing Return for Jafar Panahi
Note: This review was originally published during AFI Fest last year.
Anyone who criticizes Jafar Panahi for retreading themes in his work at this juncture of his career is kind of an asshole. The man is under the thumb of a dictatorship and forbidden from ...
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“Life Itself”: Portrait Of A Film Critic
"He's a nice guy. But he's not that nice." This thought is presented to us early on in Life Itself, Steve James' loving, peering documentary about the life, times, and passing of Roger Ebert. Over the course of 2 hours, James takes it upon himself to explore t...
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“The Girl on the Train” A Silly and Ultimately Forgettable Thriller
"Didn't Jesus say, 'What is truth?" is an odd question for a NYPD detective to ask a potential suspect of a murder, but it's no odder than the cool-headed reply: "I think it was Pilate." Debating the essence of moral or objective truth, what it means to film t...
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Hell Is For Real In “Deliver Us From Evil”
Horror movies seem to always go through an awkward warmup phase in the first 10 to 15 minutes. The audience has to be willing to move past whatever initial preposterousness presents itself— monsters, ghosts, evil spirits, creepy whisper kids, and hackneyed car...
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“Premature” Too Sticky In Its Execution Despite a High Concept
It's no accident that every review of Premature refers to the film within the context of its relationship to Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day. The new film’s narrative similarity to the older one — in both, the protagonist finds himself reliving the same day witho...
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“Coherence” A Heady, Ambitious, Not Entirely Successful Low-Budget Genre Picture
Coherence is a heady, ambitious mind-fuck of an American independent feature, and not in the druggy stoned-out sort of way that most "mind-fuck movies" are, either. It’s low-budget and high-concept: eight friends gather in a room, a comet passes overhead, and ...
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“Earth to Echo” Crash Lands Your Childhood
See if this log line sounds familiar to you: a group of winsome young people discover an adorable alien entity, stranded on Earth and sought after by shady government spooks, and work together to help get the little critter home. Everyone learns a lesson. Hear...
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