7 years ago
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“Top Five”
It’s often said that comedy is the hardest thing for a performer, and it must be hard to be a comedian in the celebrity bubble of Hollywood. Sure, there’s the potential for big franchise paychecks and the adoration of countless fans, but with them comes the er...
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Losing My Religion: “The Decalogue”
Twenty-five years ago, before the “golden age of television” was ever christened, Krzysztof Kieslowski blessed Polish TV sets with his majestic work The Decalogue, a series of 10 short films loosely based on the Ten Commandments. It was a distinctive cinematic...
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The Paul Thomas Anderson Retrospective
Though he's only made seven films, Paul Thomas Anderson has nonetheless made an indelible mark upon American cinema, evoking the likes of Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick, but able to form a voice all his own. This December, his latest film, Inherent Vice, hi...
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Blu-ray Review: “Safe”
Distributor: The Criterion Collection
Release Date: December 9, 2014
MSRP: $39.99
Order at Amazon
Film: A / Video: A / Audio: B+ / Extras: A-
Safe begins with a sense of retreat, the camera pointed through the windshield of a car as it traverses Californi...
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When Axel Rose: “Beverly Hills Cop” at 30
It’s impossible to overstate, even 30 years later, how huge Eddie Murphy was in 1984. After starting stand-up as a teenager and joining Saturday Night Live in 1980 when he was just 19, he continued to grow his stardom in 1982 with his first comedy album and hi...
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“Wild”
After the laurels his latest effort, Dallas Buyers Club, gathered, Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée was in a perfect position to aim higher. And, ambitious as he is, this is what he did, choosing a potentially appealing but equally risky one-protagonist-agai...
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Planet Boro: “Boro: Camera Obscura”
Nothing less than momentous, the DVD/Blu-ray box set “Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection”, released by Arrow Films in September and containing work of the famous Polish émigré artist Walerian Borowczyk, is already something of a Holy Grail among...
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The Speed of Life: “Listen Up Philip” and “We Won’t Grow Old Together”
Both the overwhelming critical acceptance of Alex Ross Perry’s latest film, Listen Up Philip, and a renewed interest in Maurice Pialat’s 1972 film We Won’t Grow Old Together have accounted for one of the year’s more inspiring shared success stories. These film...
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Looking Back (Into Darkness): Abraham Polonsky’s “Force of Evil”
When sniffing for evidence of "subversion" in Abraham Polonsky's work, surely the House Un-American Activities Committee didn't have to look much further than the opening of his 1948 directorial debut, Force of Evil. The camera tilts down from the New York sky...
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To Be Okay: An Interview with Shawn Christensen
Only 19 minutes long, Curfew, a short film by writer/director/actor Shawn Christensen, is a dark and redemptive tale about a junkie guy (Christensen) charged with babysitting his 11-year-old niece (Fatima Ptacek) over the course of one long chaotic evening. I ...
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