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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Dana Stevens
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Holofcener is a writer-director in the truest sense, a filmmaker whose movies stand out for the attention they pay to nuances of everyday speech and behavior.
Posted May 25, 2023
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Occupied City
(2023)
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Sam Adams
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It’s an attempt to find a new way of keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, as the people who remember it firsthand disappear.
Posted May 22, 2023
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The Zone of Interest
(2023)
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Sam Adams
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The digital cinematography is harsh and glaring, so sharp that it rakes at your eyes. Already, we’re seeing more than we want to.
Posted May 22, 2023
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Hannah Gadsby: Something Special
(2023)
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Imogen West-Knights
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It may be a less revolutionary kind of vulnerability than we saw in Nanette. But it’s nice to see Gadsby reveling in something of a happy ending. Or, if not a happy ending, a happy middle of the story.
Posted May 04, 2023
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
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Nadira Goffe
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In addition to being the darkest, goriest, and most disturbing Marvel movie, it’s also a contender for the funniest.
Posted May 02, 2023
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
(2023)
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Dana Stevens
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Craig’s 2016 debut The Edge of Seventeen established her as a keenly observant chronicler of adolescence. With Margaret, she takes that skill to the next level of difficulty...
Posted Apr 27, 2023
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John Mulaney: Baby J
(2023)
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Imogen West-Knights
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It’s funny. Mulaney has very much still got it.
Posted Apr 25, 2023
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Paint
(2023)
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Dana Stevens
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This could have been the setup for a terrific workplace comedy if McAdams’ script didn’t seem at every turn to blunt the edge of its own satire.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Air
(2023)
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Jack Hamilton
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Air is thoroughly entertaining, even if it never really maximizes its alluring potential.
Posted Apr 06, 2023
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
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Sam Thielman
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As an adaptation of the source material, I think it’s probably not too grand to say that it works perfectly.
Posted Mar 30, 2023
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Problemista
(2023)
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Cat Cardenas
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An imaginative, impressive, not to mention hilarious debut...
Posted Mar 17, 2023
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Cocaine Bear
(2023)
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Tyler Austin Harper
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In an atmosphere in which it is all too easy to feel suffocated by climate anxiety, Elizabeth Banks’ film cuts through our ecological malaise.
Posted Feb 25, 2023
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Emily
(2022)
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Laura Miller
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[Brontë] deserves more than this biopic’s utter lack of interest in the very thing that made her immortal. Emily is a movie about “writing” that’s forgotten how to read.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Godzilla
(1998)
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David Edelstein
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What the new, monstrously budgeted Godzilla brings home is that size doesn’t matter -- that tacky crudeness harnessed to a real vision can have more brute power than all the state-of-the-art computer wizardry that Hollywood’s money can buy.
Posted Feb 15, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance
(2023)
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Dana Stevens
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To the disappointment of this once-enthusiastic ogler, Magic Mike’s Last Dance fails to capture the eponymous magic of the first two very different but both delightful movies.
Posted Feb 08, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin
(2023)
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Sam Adams
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Although some of the movie’s changes were inevitable and the book is hardly some sacrosanct masterwork, the disruption of the story’s final act makes the movie feel incoherent at best.
Posted Feb 04, 2023
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80 for Brady
(2023)
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Heather Schwedel
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It’s one thing to peddle this sort of puffery—which, lest we forget, is also part of a much larger machine of brainwashing about the NFL as an institution—but to use Rita Moreno and Lily Tomlin as human shields? I will not tolerate it.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Past Lives
(2023)
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Sam Adams
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January isn’t usually the time to start making Top 10 lists, but I can already confidently put Past Lives on mine.
Posted Jan 27, 2023
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The Big Lebowski
(1998)
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Alex Ross
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Do these enormously talented filmmakers show a moral failing?... I think they do. Their sin is pride. The Coens have reached a stage where they no longer question their ideas or flesh them out.
Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Babylon
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Chazelle can be weirdly inattentive to the overall structure of a movie’s narrative, so that, while never boring, Babylon winds up being exhausting.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Avatar: The Way of Water
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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The beauty of the world... evoked in lush detail by cinematographer Russell Carpenter, is enough, most of the time, to make you forgive the hokiness of the screenplay by Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.
Posted Dec 15, 2022
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Nothing Compares
(2022)
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Tim Grierson
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Nothing Compares doesn’t spend much time on Classic Albums-style deep dives into how this guitar riff came together or what inspired that ballad, preferring an emotional snapshot to a traditional rock-doc portrait.
Posted Dec 14, 2022
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Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie
(2021)
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Nadira Goffe
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MAPPA, who is praised for its quality animation, really went all out for this one.
Posted Dec 14, 2022
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
(2022)
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Sam Adams
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Del Toro finds in this oft-told tale both the heart that has allowed it to endure for so long and an idiosyncratic connection that makes his version feel new.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
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The Whale
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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[A] peculiar and often deeply unpleasant movie...
Posted Dec 01, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Johnson’s twist-packed script and sight-gag-packed frame offer something few contemporary blockbusters do: attunement to the audience’s emotional response in the moment.
Posted Nov 21, 2022
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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To a much greater degree than I would have thought possible, Wakanda Forever is a gajillion-dollar comic-book blockbuster about something as complex and interior as the act of female mourning, split among at least four different strong woman protagonists.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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An appropriately goofy tribute to its subject and co-creator: a movie parody about the life of a parodist.
Posted Nov 03, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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The Banshees of Inisherin’s greatest gift to its audience is its refusal to turn its eccentric, intimate story into an allegory for anything other than what it is: the sad tale of an abruptly interrupted friendship in a beautiful, isolated place.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Tár
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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The adjectives that come to mind to describe Tár apply also to its protagonist: Todd Field’s third film is magisterial, enigmatic, self-contradictory, and wickedly seductive.
Posted Oct 06, 2022
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Moonage Daydream
(2022)
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Carl Wilson
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The grist is often great... but their potency can’t survive being mashed and VFX’d into a two-hour-and-20-minute music video. What could?
Posted Sep 19, 2022
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Blonde
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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It’s an astonishing feat of performance that, sadly, feels set adrift in a hollow and dramatically inert movie that disserves both the actor and the character she plays.
Posted Sep 16, 2022
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The People's Joker
(2022)
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Sam Adams
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It’s a sight to see–or it will be, if anyone ever sees it again.
Posted Sep 15, 2022
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Bullet Train
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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At a moment in his career when Pitt seems to be contemplating how to transition to a third act, it is to be hoped he will consider a different means of transportation next time.
Posted Aug 04, 2022
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Sharp Stick
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Dunham’s provocations here feel as unsubtle as the pokey implement of the title.
Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Nope
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Perhaps it’s fated that a movie with ambitions [this] big would fall short of accomplishing all it sets out to do. But along the way Peele gives us one hell of a spectacle.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
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Where the Crawdads Sing
(2022)
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Laura Miller
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The same ethical solipsism that enabled Owens’ past adventures abroad presides over Crawdads, and Newman’s film can’t escape it, either.
Posted Jul 15, 2022
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Persuasion
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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A soggy mess of limp rom-com clichés that does a disservice not only to Austen but to all her contemporary inheritors, from Cher Horowitz to Bridget Jones.
Posted Jul 13, 2022
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Thor: Love and Thunder
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Given the formulaic nature of the Marvel Studios house style, Waititi has crafted a successful if less than world-shaking sequel to his memorable Marvel debut.
Posted Jul 07, 2022
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Fire of Love
(2022)
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Sam Adams
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[A] thrilling, moving documentary...
Posted Jul 07, 2022
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Elvis
(2022)
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Jack Hamilton
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The most anachronistic element of Elvis is its cloying need to assure us that its hero was a good person, as if trying to preemptively counter some imagined onslaught of TikToks about why Elvis Presley is problematic.
Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
(2021)
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Dana Stevens
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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On struck me as an animated film like no other I can recall.
Posted Jun 23, 2022
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Spiderhead
(2022)
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Laura Miller
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Soon... it becomes obvious that this film won’t have the courage of Saunders’ story.
Posted Jun 18, 2022
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Lightyear
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Family audiences with no grand expectations that their Saturday afternoon matinee viewing constitute great art will have a fine time watching Buzz and his pals zip from infinity to beyond and back.
Posted Jun 17, 2022
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RRR
(2022)
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Nitish Pahwa
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RRR is maximum cinema, the kind of in-your-face, colorful, fiery, loud, awe-inspiring experience you really can only get from the movies.
Posted Jun 09, 2022
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The Janes
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Not only a crucial part of the historical record but a searingly contemporary film about the power of mutual aid and collective action.
Posted Jun 08, 2022
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Crimes of the Future
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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Our modern anxiety over everyday lives that are ever more suffused by technology... has rarely been expressed with such simplicity and intuitive rightness.
Posted Jun 05, 2022
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808
(2015)
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Jack Hamilton
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A fittingly quirky and lively documentary.
Posted Jun 02, 2022
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Top Gun: Maverick
(2022)
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Dana Stevens
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No wheels are reinvented (though one pair does get sheared off a plane’s landing gear by a barely cleared mountain), but the dialogue charms, the aerial sequences soar, and the two hours and 17 minutes of runtime speed by at (forgive me) Mach 10.
Posted May 26, 2022
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Mariupolis 2
(2022)
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Sam Adams
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A ragged, inevitably imperfect movie whose unfinished qualities... convey both the disruptions of war and the tragically truncated nature of the film’s own creation.
Posted May 20, 2022
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