9 years ago
Theatrical (10 posts found)
Coming to a theater near you
“CHAPPiE”
If Bono directed films, he’d be Neill Blomkamp. His features smugly denounce the ruination of class and racial conflicts while nonetheless seeking easy refuge in clichéd, half-sketched images of said conflicts for the sake of drama. Everyone mocks Elysium and ...
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“The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest”
The story of Mark DeFriest is a truth stranger than fiction. In 1980, DeFriest was sentenced to four years in prison for minor theft at the age of 20, but his fight-or-flight instincts kicked in and he fled from jail. Recaptured only a day later, DeFriest’s me...
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“Faults”
Riley Stearns’ debut feature, Faults, focuses on life within a cult. It revels in a brand of subversion that breaks individuals down until they give up all self-control to another. That absurd and pervasive pathology fittingly matches the form of the film, whi...
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“Futuro Beach”
Karim Aïnouz’s Futuro Beach is a film that searches for beauty amid the crisis of life. Drilling down on that outline, it’s a film about life cycles; the foundation of its narrative, loose and shapeless though it may be, rests on the human connections made and...
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“Buzzard”
Thanks to the efforts of Judd Apatow and his contemporaries and cohorts, the manboy currently dominates American pop culture. Slackers, stoners, dweebs, and the like are not just “in” -- they are. The dude who’s refused to accept one more iota of responsibilit...
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“Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank”
No great shakes as a documentary but a hugely entertaining repository of zingers, Compared To What? The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank follows the indefatigable representative from Massachusetts’ Fourth district during the waning days of his 40-year politi...
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“Eastern Boys”
Eastern Boys opens on a group of adolescents at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris. The camera observes them from a distance, cinema verite-style, as they wander around, sometimes in groups, sometimes separate. One young boy catches the eye of a securit...
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“Focus”
Focus is two movies for the price of one. You get a sparkling, sexy comedy and its lackluster, dispiriting sequel, both in the same sitting. I enjoyed the first half of this picture as much as anything I’ve seen in a while. The exhausted CEO of Will Smith Fami...
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“Maps to the Stars”
For a director who’s never shot a film in the States before, David Cronenberg surely wastes no energy to ease in to the process with his new effort, and aims for the heart from the get-go. In his uncanny Hollywood satire Maps to the Stars, everyone is haunted ...
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“Everly”
Based on her recent credits, Salma Hayek may be the last person anyone would expect to go out guns blazing. In the last few years, she’s starred in disposable junk ranging from both Grown-Ups films to Here Comes the Boom, provided vocals for Puss in Boots, and...
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