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Born in Flames
(1983)
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Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli
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A visionary image of film-as-saturated-media-image.
Posted Mar 19, 2021
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How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
(2019)
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Michael Sragow
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DeBlois's confident, extravagant animation combines muscular force with doodling whimsicality. He conjures intoxicating tableaux out of roaring seas, Northern lights and mists, and ruddy, green-specked mountain isles.
Posted Mar 21, 2019
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The Edge of Seventeen
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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The Edge of Seventeen is the kind of modest, funny teen movie that we don't see enough of these days.
Posted Jan 18, 2019
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All These Sleepless Nights
(2016)
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Ela Bittencourt
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Throughout, what makes All These Sleepless Nights distinct, beyond the three protagonists philosophical, artistic musings and their charisma, is the camera's ability to convey the state of intoxication and the dreaminess of the nocturnal juvenilia.
Posted Aug 08, 2018
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A Woman's Life
(2016)
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Ela Bittencourt
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The narrative is suffused with subtle yet piquant moral commentary.
Posted Aug 08, 2018
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Amateur
(1994)
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Abbey Bender
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As its characters run through downtown New York it feels like the platonic ideal of a playful 90s indie film.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Manchester by the Sea
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea is a poignant, evocative portrait of grief.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Always Shine
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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While female friendship can be a source of joy, it can also be uniquely cruel, and Always Shine understands this truth well.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Nocturnal Animals
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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Nocturnal Animals wants to be provocative but its scattered parts all add up to something a bit silly.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Certain Women
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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The film is admirable in how it presents rural lives without any sort of condescension or melodrama. There's a kind of Zen quality to the leisurely pace with which Reichardt lets her onscreen lives unfold.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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The Love Witch
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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Elaine speaks of love magic and seduction, and Biller's film has the same enchanting effect on the audience.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Toni Erdmann
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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In less capable hands, it could easily become a saccharine family fable or a gross-out comedy, but Ade manages to find her own strange niche, bolstered by some memorable set pieces.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Elle
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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Elle makes a strong case for the actress as auteur.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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Off the Rails
(2016)
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Abbey Bender
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Off the Rails succeeds in giving us a glimpse into a mind too easily labeled as "troubled" or "different" and paints Darius as a sympathetic figure following a passion.
Posted Jun 26, 2018
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The Kindergarten Teacher
(2014)
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Steve Erickson
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Refreshingly, The Kindergarten Teacher offers a view of Israeli society that sidesteps the usual clichés.
Posted Feb 15, 2018
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The Iron Ministry
(2014)
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Steve Erickson
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It's curious about people in a way that's frankly old-fashioned.
Posted Feb 15, 2018
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The New Girlfriend
(2014)
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Steve Erickson
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In life and cinema, trans women's lives are often extremely difficult. Ozon is generous enough to imagine a path around their usual obstacle courses.
Posted Feb 15, 2018
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Wonderstruck
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Despite all of the eventfulness, there's little dramatic tension, and lots of footage of kids walking around a museum.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Call Me by Your Name
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Though much of Call Me By Your Name is lovely and well-crafted, it's never quite as subtle as the filmmakers seem to assume.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Last Flag Flying
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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This road picture's many detours, the stuff that should be right in Linklater's wheelhouse, mostly feel, well, like vexing delays.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Thelma
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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What keeps it humming is Harboe's performance, and Trier's patience, evident from the very beginning when he takes his sweet time locating Harboe in a vast overhead shot. He hasn't exactly made a horror movie here, but Thelma suggests he could.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Lady Bird
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Metcalf gives a prickly and heartbreaking performance, and she's not the only one supplied with grace notes: Almost every character gets one or another.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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If it's a little softer than some of his darkest or most hilarious movies, it's made with just as much confidence, even wisdom of a sort.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Wonder Wheel
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Ginny once dreamed of becoming an actress, one of many on-the-nose details that marks Wonder Wheel as self-consciously theatrical.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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The Big Sick
(2017)
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Evan Romano
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What The Big Sick ends up accomplishing, is -- in my mind -- perfect romantic comedy.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Patti Cake$
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Making music is not inherently cinematic, especially in the downtime between fully-formed performances. Patti Cake$, like so many struggling-musician movies before it, fills that space with a lot of melodrama.
Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Hermia & Helena
(2016)
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Eric Barroso
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Hermia and Helena...to me represents the most exciting thread that current independent arthouse cinema has to offer, films made by those preternaturally aware of their surroundings in both life and art, and in creating works that contribute to both.
Posted May 24, 2017
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Paint It Black
(2016)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Tamblyn has talent.
Posted May 17, 2017
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Alien: Covenant
(2017)
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Justin Stewart
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None of the scenery, plot turns, bit players or "themes" add anything new to the recipe.
Posted May 16, 2017
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Manifesto
(2015)
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Elina Alter
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Spliced and layered, stripped of their contexts, gathered just because they are available, the manifestos lose whatever meaning they once held.
Posted May 10, 2017
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The Drowning
(2016)
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Jonathan Stevenson
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tackles the weighty themes of voyeurism, altruism, and self-preservation artfully and inventively, subverting clichs and taking the genre in a refreshing direction
Posted May 10, 2017
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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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It's the /Snatch mash-up you probably didn't want but might not mind watching.
Posted May 09, 2017
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Risk
(2016)
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Forrest Cardamenis
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A living, breathing portrait of a filmmaker and journalist struggling to compartmentalize-a self-portrait by necessity.
Posted May 05, 2017
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Already damned with faint raves (lots of fun, so likable, but not quite as fresh as the original), Guardians Vol. 2 is a better, more satisfying movie.
Posted May 02, 2017
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The Circle
(2017)
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Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
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I'm still wrapping my head around this film, but I'm not so sure if director James Ponsoldt himself knows what a comedy this is.
Posted May 01, 2017
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A One and a Two...
(2000)
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Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
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I felt like I had lived it, and not just because of its nearly three-hour runtime.
Posted May 01, 2017
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A Quiet Passion
(2016)
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Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
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Davies chooses to mark Dickinson's life story not so much by specific events, but by her character, and Nixon captures the many facets of it with bite and empathy.
Posted May 01, 2017
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The Lost City of Z
(2016)
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Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
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At times filled with mist and awe, and at other times thrillingly heart-racing (arrows-they shoot right at you!), The Lost City of Z feels like a gem dug out from a time capsule.
Posted May 01, 2017
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Slack Bay
(2016)
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Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
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A French absurdist comedy that feels wholly original, whether it's your cup of tea or not.
Posted May 01, 2017
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Your Name
(2016)
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Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
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Beautifully animated (we're talking Studio Ghibli standards here), Your Name captures that sensation of waking up from a dream you wish lasted longer, or misplacing a name that's still warm on your tongue, but has just departed.
Posted May 01, 2017
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Slack Bay
(2016)
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Eli Goldfarb
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Like M. Hulot's Holiday being interrupted by Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," it's a riotous farce with tragic dimensions, at once both strenuously ridiculous and deeply felt.
Posted Apr 21, 2017
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Free Fire
(2016)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Nothing about Free Fire is narratively elusive-it takes place more or less in real time. Yet it remains mysterious, in its goofball way.
Posted Apr 20, 2017
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The Martian
(2015)
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Benjamin Mercer
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As pure numbers-game suspense, the movie passes inspection, but the relative absence of soul searching... makes it seem a specious vehicle for the trumpeting of such human values as cooperation, perseverance, and self-sacrifice.
Posted Apr 18, 2017
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Colossal
(2016)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Hathaway is at her best digging into characters who know that they might have or could have been sweethearts-and who often feel that anger, guilt, or loss eating away at them.
Posted Apr 04, 2017
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Ghost in the Shell
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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There are few young actors more interesting to watch quietly grappling with what the hell it means to be human.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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All This Panic
(2016)
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Mark Asch
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All This Panic feels very short at 79 minutes, but that's quite appropriate for a film which takes seriously the way 17-year-olds can feel nostalgia for their youth.
Posted Mar 30, 2017
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Wilson
(2017)
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Jesse Hassenger
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Amazing, the way the right pair of glasses can bring a comic-strip character to life.
Posted Mar 22, 2017
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Little Men
(2016)
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Kenji Fujishima
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As was the case with Love is Strange, Sachs observes these interpersonal dynamics with an evenhanded gaze, refusing to fully condemn any of his characters even when they act in selfish and untoward ways.
Posted Mar 20, 2017
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The Alchemist Cookbook
(2016)
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Justin Stewart
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Hickson's largely silent performance is superb (in the kind of complex role not typically given to black actors in modern horror movies), never overselling his creeping madness.
Posted Mar 20, 2017
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Little Sister
(2016)
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Kenji Fujishima
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Clark closely observes all these character dynamics with an empathetic eye, a skewed sense of humor, and a freewheeling inventiveness that keeps things refreshingly off-balance without losing its emotional heart.
Posted Mar 20, 2017
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