7 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“Prince” Is A Buoyant and Charming Debut
In Holland, first you get the energy drink, then you get the purple Lamborghini, then you get the women—or so it goes in Sam de Jong’s buoyant and charming debut Prince, a familiar coming-of-age scenario energized via the fresh lens of the 28-year-old Dutch mu...
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“Fort Tilden” Is As Dyspeptic And Amusing As Its Leads Are Dim
A dyspeptic riff on the exhaustingly over-documented travails of today’s rudderless post-collegiate folks belatedly coming of age in gentrified Brooklyn, the debut feature from writer-directors Sarah Violet-Bliss and Charles Rogers takes an amusingly dim view ...
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“Mistress America” Is Fresh, Original, and Marvelous
In Mistress America, writers Noah Baumbach, who also directs, and Greta Gerwig, who also stars, have harmonized their distinct voices into something marvelous. Millennial communication patterns—a constant, rapid shuffle between angst, oversharing, self-mytholo...
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Persona of Interest: “Tom at the Farm”
In a tense scene in writer-director Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm, the hulking Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), his muscular form not hidden by his suit, pushes his deceased brother’s diminutive boyfriend Tom (Dolan), to the corner of a bathroom stall. They ar...
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“Final Girl” Has A Crippling Lack of Imagination
Have you ever sat through a movie so ponderous and pointless that you felt the minutes ticking by as your patience slowly dwindled to zero? That’s more or less the experience of watching Tyler Shields’ immeasurably boring Final Girl, a film injudiciously stitc...
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“People Places Things” Is Unmemorable, Uninteresting, and Unamusing
For how unmemorable and uninteresting it is, writer/director James Strouse’s People Places Things may well have been called “Noun.” Having premiered at Sundance with little fanfare, likely amid a cacophony of similarly sickly twee dramedies, Strouse’s story of...
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“Cop Car” Starts Strong, But Sputters To A Finish
The first half-hour or so of director Jon Watts' Cop Car is such a model of lean, efficient storytelling that I initially thought I might be watching a new classic. Two 10-year old boys ( James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford) have run away from home and ar...
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“Fantastic Four” Isn’t Terrible, Just Unremarkable
A cursory browse of the Internet suggests that the new Fantastic Four may as well be one of the worst films ever made: an Adam Sandleresque score on Low Hanging Fruit, unusually harsh user rating on the Internet Males Database, and widely reported tales of pro...
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“Ricki and the Flash” Is Recognizable, But Charming
In some ways, we’ve seen Ricki and the Flash before. With its focus on a broken family and a lengthy final sequence set at a wedding, Jonathan Demme’s latest picture sounds a lot like his 2008 feature Rachel Getting Married. Yet, by virtue of the heartfelt str...
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“Shaun the Sheep Movie” Is An Old-Fashioned Delight
Not a single word is spoken in Shaun the Sheep Movie, nor are any necessary. The latest film from Aardman Animations, this low-key story goes even further than Minions, where just the title characters speak only in gibberish. Here, everyone communicates in gru...
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