8 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“Anomalisa” Is A Genuinely Enlivening Work of Art
With his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York (2008), Charlie Kaufman, one of contemporary cinema’s most distinguished screenwriters, undertook no less grand a task than articulating the way we all live our lives. Funneled through the mind’s eye of theater ...
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Back to Basics in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”
The Star Wars prequels are failures for many, endlessly catalogued reasons, but among the most egregious is the reliance on volumes of exposition to establish background and intervening details. Instead of letting actors suggest individual and collaborative hi...
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David O. Russell’s Fulfilling “Joy”
David O. Russell has always displayed a knack for formulating a dose of playful, hectic kitsch. From American Hustle’s big hairs, sideburns, and bare-chested outfits to the chaos-seeking, loudmouth families in The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook, his chatt...
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Looking for Solutions
in “Where to Invade Next”
Note. This review was originally published as part of our New York Film Festival 2015 coverage.
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 ...
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Exploring Past and Present
in “45 Years”
Set against the black of the screen, the only sound we hear in the opening credits of Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years resembles that of a cartridge changing, as if one of those seemingly ancient negative projectors were being perused, the names and production companie...
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“Arabian Nights, Vol. 3” Caps A Work of Grand Ambition
The first two volumes of Miguel Gomes’s latest film, Arabian Nights, explore the crippling effects of economic mismanagement in Portugal, ostensibly through the magical lens of Princess Scheherazade, who narrates the tales to her husband, King Shahryar. The th...
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“In the Heart of the Sea” Doesn’t Know Dick
In the Heart of the Sea doesn’t get to the heart of much. In fact, Ron Howard’s seafaring adventure is as confused a picture as I’ve seen in quite some time. Adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2000 best-seller about the sinking of the whaleship Essex, the film...
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“The Big Short” Winds Up Being Vaguely Condescending
The fundamental argument of Adam McKay’s The Big Short, adapted from Michael Lewis’s overview of the housing collapse of the late 2000s, is that the basic truths of the economic collapse are easy to understand but are made difficult by the architects of that c...
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“Don Verdean” May Only Appeal to Hardcore Jared Hess Fans
Early last month, a YouTube video featuring Pastor Kevin Swanson as he delivered a speech before the National Religious Liberties Conference became viral. An animated Swanson answers the question of what he would do were he to be invited to his (hypothetically...
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“Boy and the World” Is A Can’t-Miss Film
Simple shapes form kaleidoscopic fractals. The image continually pulls outward until the viewer understands that they’re looking at atoms, then molecules, then compounds, all composing a colored stone. Observing the stone is a young boy, drawn in a manner so s...
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