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3/5
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Heart of Stone
(2023)
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Martin Carr
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Heart of Stone is a generic action movie held together by Gal Gadot. That comes together thanks to some inventive set pieces and a committed ensemble cast.
Posted Aug 11, 2023
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
(2022)
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Tom Beasley
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The movie is absurd, ridiculous, silly and, without question, the stupidest movie of the year. It's also one of the funniest.
Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Spencer
(2021)
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Tom Beasley
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It's part costume drama, part psychological thriller and part gothic horror. Seriously.
Posted Oct 08, 2021
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Greenland
(2020)
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Tom Beasley
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This is a powerful Butler movie which is about more than running, jumping, shouting and shooting.
Posted Feb 08, 2021
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Venom
(2018)
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Hanna Flint
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It seems too many variables have led to a shallow antihero that doesn't hold up to Fox or Marvel Studio's offerings. Venom deserved better than that.
Posted Jan 31, 2019
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Climax
(2018)
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Hanna Flint
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As the film progresses and their characters' inhibitions became increasingly lost and chaotic Noe has, purposefully or not, perpetuated a barbaric stereotype of black people.
Posted Jan 31, 2019
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Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas
(1977)
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Gwynne Watkins
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More cinematic and ambitious than any of the Muppets' previous television projects - with full sets, animatronics, and puppets custom-built for the story - the special paved the way for Henson-produced feature films.
Posted Oct 23, 2018
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The Week Of
(2018)
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Ken Tucker
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If you're willing to take The Week Of on its own terms, it's a goodhearted, sentimental comedy that wants to be The Father of the Bride with more vulgarity.
Posted Apr 27, 2018
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3.4
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August: Osage County
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Nothing makes you feel better about your dysfunctional family at the holidays than watching a messed-up clan unravel on screen, only armed with better zingers and prettier faces. That describes this adaptation of Tracy Letts's star-studded drama.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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3/4
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At Middleton
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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The college visit is a day trip fraught with tension and expectations played out by parents and children across America. In Adam Rodgers' comedy "At Middleton," unexpected love blossoms between the parental units in a single day on a verdant campus.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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3.5/4
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Whiplash
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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When an ambitious young musician (Miles Teller) strives to be a Buddy Rich class drummer, he nearly dies trying in a charged battle of wills with his thorny professor (J. K. Simmons). The buzzy Sundance hit vibrates with life lived at fever pitch.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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3.5/4
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Nightcrawler
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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In director Dan Gilroy's sleek crime-thriller, Jake Gyllenhaal has found a role in which he can act against his good looks and buff bod. He throws himself out there and falls - until something darker and deeper kicks in.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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3.5/4
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Mr. Turner
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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Timothy Spall grunts, gurgles and sputters playing J. M. W. Turner in Mike Leigh's visually stunning biopic. The round-faced British character actor took Best Actor at Cannes for his crass-yet-compelling portrait of an artist as a wheezy old lout.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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3.5/4
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Tusk
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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A revolting, creepy, and enthralling metamorphosis movie that toys with the audience's ideas of horror and retribution, while presenting a stream of verbal and visual jokes with a great turn by Michael Parks. Kevin Smith is back!
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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4/4
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Two Days One Night
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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Naturalistic and probing, in Two Days, One Night, Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne tell an apparently simple, linear story with astonishing depth bolstered by another Oscar-worthy turn from Marion Cotillard.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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4/4
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The Imitation Game
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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Cumberbatch bristles with brilliance in this handsome biopics the British do so well about the fascinating, tragic story of mathematician Alan Turing.
Posted Sep 12, 2014
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The Equalizer
(2014)
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Thelma Adams
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For sheer balletic violence -- and a rousing, climactic High Noon-like face-off finale -- The Equalizer delivers on what Washington and Fuqua promise.
Posted Sep 08, 2014
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U Want Me 2 Kill Him?
(2013)
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Frank Ochieng
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Gripping, hypnotic and unassuming, Uwantme2KILLhim? takes its teen angst-ridden tendencies to a whole new deceptive level.
Posted Mar 14, 2014
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Philomena
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Dench and Coogan could easily do an odd couple comedy. That's one of the peculiar revelations of Stephen Frears' dry, amusing and deeply moving ripped-from-the-headlines road movie.
Posted Nov 22, 2013
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The Book Thief
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Just when I thought I could never, would never weep at another Holocaust film, along comes the screen adaptation of "The Book Thief." Kleenex, stat!
Posted Nov 12, 2013
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The Bling Ring
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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To criticize that the script doesn't go deep enough is to get the point: with all that swag out there for repeat-offenders like Lohan, why shouldn't a girl walk up to an empty house and liberate its contents for the sheer joy of material possession?
Posted Nov 02, 2013
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Much Ado About Nothing
(2012)
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Thelma Adams
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More familiar than fresh, but no less amusing. Whedon uses Shakespeare to remind audiences that the problems that existed in the seventeenth century remain relevant and embedded in the human heart.
Posted Nov 02, 2013
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Before Midnight
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Hawke and Delpy emerge multi-dimensional and riddled with flaws. In a long-term relationship, you may think you know what the other is thinking, but do you ever really know?
Posted Nov 02, 2013
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Frances Ha
(2012)
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Thelma Adams
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Bolstered by a shrewd script and meticulous director, Gerwig shines. By turn screwball heroine and ungainly in character, she emerges as her generation's finest comic actress.
Posted Nov 02, 2013
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A Hijacking
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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While the drama functions with a thriller's intensity, a cat-and-mouse game played with dollars and automatic weapons, it's really a study in contrasts.
Posted Nov 01, 2013
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I'm So Excited!
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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"I'm so Excited" shows Pedro Almodovar at his frothiest: shaking sex and death into a humorous cocktail aboard a plane in peril.
Posted Nov 01, 2013
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The Way, Way Back
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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If you're first act was writing the Oscar winning screenplay for "The Descendants," looking for an encore can be tough. But Nat Faxon and Jim Rash leveraged that win and made the leap to directing their own small-budget, bighearted coming of age comedy.
Posted Nov 01, 2013
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The Hunt
(2012)
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Thelma Adams
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Vinterberg uses a sharp cinematic knife to cut to the core of the matter: that the human heart can never be entirely civilized and, ultimately, each man is alone with his fate.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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Only God Forgives
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Those who are less judgmental, or less enamored of the sentimentality of "Drive" -- and "Bronson" die-hards -- will know to lower their expectations and see what strange, stylized crime drama the Danish director is serving up this time.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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Short Term 12
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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The film succeeds by its simple storytelling technique - no explosions, no sweeping music signaling emotional peaks, no big reveals. It's just unsuperhumans...hoping to scratch out some joy and ward off the shadow of loneliness.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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Ain't Them Bodies Saints
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Like a bastard love child of Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, David Lowery's crime drama shuffles to its own drummer.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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Lovelace
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Co-directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman corralled a stellar cast that piles on great performances.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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Cockneys vs Zombies
(2012)
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Thelma Adams
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Maybe it's me, but after all the bloated, clanging, FX-driven summer tent poles, I'm partial to a gentle genre horror comedy that has gooey guts - but doesn't throw the heart out with the steaming entrails.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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Blackfish
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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Gabriela Cowperthwaite's eye-opening, edge-of-your-seat feature "Blackfish" has it all: an oversized villain, chilling attack footage, corporate malfeasance, and girls in bikinis.
Posted Oct 31, 2013
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All Is Lost
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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As a solo sailor on a hostile sea, Robert Redford doesn't so much play to the camera, as tolerate it, showing that, even at 77, he's so much more than a pretty face, a buttery voice and an athletic physique.
Posted Oct 30, 2013
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The East
(2013)
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Thelma Adams
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What makes The East a necessary destination is that it explores the personal why's behind these homegrown terrorists, and discovers each individual's mixed motives for taking the law into their own hands.
Posted Jun 05, 2013
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5/5
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Skyfall
(2012)
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Orlando Parfitt
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We think 'Skyfall' is a future classic.
Posted Oct 19, 2012
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