7 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
‘Short Term 12’ is Cinema At Its Most Compassionate, Vulnerable, and Human
Republished and altered from our LA Film Festival Coverage
There have been many films about at-risk teens receiving guidance from a surrogate parental figure, from Stand and Deliver to Freedom Writers to The Blind Side, which tend to feel false due to water...
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Adam Wingard’s ‘You’re Next’ is Hysterical, Brutal, and Tons of Fun
Republished and altered from our LA Film Festival coverage.
When I saw You're Next at the LA Film Festival, director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett introduced the film to the crowded theater by saying up front “We made this movie with the purpose of ...
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‘The World’s End’: Temper Your Expectations For A Cornetto You’ve Tasted Before
Director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost return for one last bite of the Cornetto in The World’s End, the final entry in their pop-culturally attuned comic answer to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors films, the Blood & Ice-Cream trilogy....
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‘Paranoia’: An Undercooked Espionage Caper
Adam Cassidy wants more from life.
Born in Brooklyn and raised by his cigar-smoking father Frank (Richard Dreyfuss), who worked a steady job until retirement, Adam (Liam Hemsworth) wants to completely abandon his upbringing and bathe in excess – drive the ext...
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‘Cutie and the Boxer’: Art, Love, and Everything in Between
An 80-something-year-old man puts on boxing gloves with paint-soaked sponges strapped on them. With furious energy that belies his age, he assaults a large canvas, punching with his eyes closed, leaving a spatter with each blow. After a minute, most of the can...
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‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’: PG-13 Prestige with a Hint of Freaky-Deaky
The trailer for the movie formerly known as The Butler looked like the love child of Stanley Kramer and Irwin Allen’s casting agent. Here was an old-fashioned “prestige picture” with an all-star cast in unusual roles. At its center is Forrest Whitaker playing ...
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‘Kick-Ass 2’: Lame, Obligatory, and With Nothing Subversive to Say
Despite having hung up the mask at the end of the original, Kick-Ass 2 sees bespectacled high-schooler Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) once again don the identity of costumed crime fighter, Kick-Ass. The reason? Well, there wouldn’t be a sequel if he didn...
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‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saints’: A Flawed and Fictional Cinematic Folk Song
On paper, David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints is the kind of film that I'd be all over. Melding elements of an elegiac, Malick-ian romance with a Western-infused, Coen Brothers-esque crime plot, the 'Texas-set period film stars Rooney Mara and Casey Afflec...
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The Wandering, Wondering ‘Prince Avalanche’
Many cinema fans have wondered what happened to the David Gordon Green they knew and loved ever since the indie darling went Hollywood. It turns out he's still around, that more sensitive soul buried under the purveyor of weed jokes and Danny McBride. Prince A...
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‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’ Is Earnest, Good-Natured Fun
Film adaptations of young adult novels seem like easy targets for critical beatdowns. They're simplistic, littered with rote characters, broad strokes mythology, an all-encompassing lack of surprise, and an overly-serious tone. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters c...
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