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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
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Craig D. Lindsey
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Despite all the flavors in the cast, the movie is still disappointingly vanilla.
Posted May 26, 2023
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2/5
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Spirit Halloween: The Movie
(2022)
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Steve Schneider
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Not only is the action tepid, it only takes up the last act of the movie. The rest of the running time is occupied by whiny dithering over juvenile social dilemmas that are hoary in the extreme.
Posted Oct 26, 2022
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1/5
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The Munsters
(2022)
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Steve Schneider
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Zombie has zero ability to structure a story: While his flick feels nearly interminable at 110 minutes, entire sections of plot seem to be missing, or at least glossed over. And he doesn’t know how to tell a joke...
Posted Sep 21, 2022
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The Batman
(2022)
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Sam Allard
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The film succeeds as both a narrative and visual product.
Posted Feb 28, 2022
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Sisters with Transistors
(2020)
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Will Coviello
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It's fascinating to hear women from the 1950s articulating ideas about making electronic music that would be resisted or misunderstood for decades. It seems that many people just weren't listening, either to the music or women.
Posted Jun 02, 2021
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3/5
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The Truffle Hunters
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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The film's humor and beauty overwhelm its vagueness and tendency toward tedium.
Posted Apr 30, 2021
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3.25/5
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The Courier
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Nitpicks aside, The Courier is eminently watchable, even occasionally compelling,
Posted Mar 18, 2021
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4.5/5
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The Father
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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A performance of the stature of Hopkins' in The Father doesn't come along often. Let's cherish it while we can.
Posted Mar 17, 2021
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3.75/5
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Nomadland
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Zhao's screenplay ... doesn't strike a single insincere note, [and] I'm grateful for the opportunity to follow Fern and her friends on their journey.
Posted Feb 18, 2021
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4.25/5
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Minari
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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It's ... arguably the best movie of 2020 ... filmed primarily in a language other than English.
Posted Feb 12, 2021
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3.5/5
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Mank
(2020)
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Steve Schneider
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If it's no Citizen Kane, it at least warrants tearing yourself away from TCM for a couple hours.
Posted Dec 04, 2020
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3/5
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The Last Vermeer
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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The film's triumph is not its reintroduction of van Meegeren to the world, though that is commendable. Instead, it's the conversation it fosters about art itself.
Posted Nov 24, 2020
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3.25/5
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Those Who Remained
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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"Why do you live?" [Klara] asks him. "Is there any real answer to that?" he responds. But, despite all odds, they find a reason - together.
Posted Nov 12, 2020
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1.75/5
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Shiva Baby
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Despite moments of laughter and poignancy, the film - which is essentially one long scene at a Jewish funeral gathering - leaves one with a palpable feeling of "Is that all?"
Posted Nov 12, 2020
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3/5
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Asia
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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The emotional impact of that re-examination takes a while to build, and ... the storytelling isn't always as crisp as it could be. But the payoff is profound.
Posted Nov 12, 2020
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2/5
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Tenet
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Tenet is all action all the time, sacrificing heart and clarity for spectacle.
Posted Sep 04, 2020
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2.75/5
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Tesla
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Almereyda ... still has something interesting to say and, more often than not, a refreshingly strange way to say it.
Posted Aug 19, 2020
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4/5
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Boys State
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss ... craft not just one of the best recent documentaries but one of this year's most revelatory and relevant films of any genre.
Posted Aug 14, 2020
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3/5
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The Perfect Candidate
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Not unlike her movie's lead character, director Haifaa Al-Mansour is a trailblazer, becoming in 2012 the first Saudi woman to direct a feature.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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3.25/5
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Summerland
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Its period charm, tight screenplay and interesting story transcend its contrivances. It's especially buoyed by Gemma Arterton's great lead performance.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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1.25/5
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S...house
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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With a rambling structure and subpar craftsmanship, Shithouse smells too much like a low-budget debut film.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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3.75/5
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Some Kind of Heaven
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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A tragicomic ... combination of The Stepford Wives and an Errol Morris movie, it's one of the best documentaries you'll see this year.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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2.75/5
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Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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The desserts - and the stories behind them - are delectable.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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3.5/5
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Adam
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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With methodical and muted, but tender, direction by first-timer Maryam Touzani, who penned the socially relevant screenplay, Adam is a reminder that the unlikeliest of relationships can change a life forever.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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1.25/5
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18 to Party
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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There's just too little joy, humor, originality and entertainment in this dimly lit, low-budget slice-of-lifer.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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3/5
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Born Into the Gig
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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The simple premise slowly morphs into an enjoyable, honest and occasionally prophetic examination of what it takes to follow in the familial footsteps of giants.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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1.5/5
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Landfall
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Aldarondo's spotlight is often too dim, too oblique to function as anything more than an intriguing but vague tone poem for Puerto Rico's suffering.
Posted Aug 06, 2020
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1.5/5
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The Beach House
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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The characters ... constantly remind us and each other, "Don't be scared." They needn't. For while the film does a decent job at creating vague dread, it never approaches anything resembling genuine fear.
Posted Jul 09, 2020
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2.5/5
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The King of Staten Island
(2020)
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Cameron Meier
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Though many of [the film's] fragments are funny and produce an emotional payoff, the hard truth is that Apatow's film, just like its title character, is unexpectedly lovable but a bit broken.
Posted Jun 10, 2020
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3/5
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Judy & Punch
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Even the music is anachronistic, featuring everything from Leonard Cohen to Johann Sebastian Bach. Yet this is one Baroque film that doesn't need fixing.
Posted Jun 05, 2020
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Kaboom
(2010)
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Justin Strout
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[T]he inconceivably bad, wholly inorganic latest from Gregg Araki, a lifetime purveyor of similarly ugly films that try to speak to a generation that, thankfully, never existed except for in Araki's developmentally stunted head.
Posted May 29, 2020
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1.75/5
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The Vast of Night
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Patterson's movie ... extends its stylish hand into the vastness of space and comes up empty.
Posted May 29, 2020
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5/5
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Holy Motors
(2012)
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Rob Boylan
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It takes a lot to put yourself completely in a director's hands during a movie like this, but doing so makes Holy Motors deeply rewarding if you hang in with it and let Carax guide you.
Posted Apr 29, 2020
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2.25/5
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True History of the Kelly Gang
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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While Australian director Justin Dallas Kurzel's True History of the Kelly Gang is just the latest in this cinematic legacy, it's arguably the most visceral and brutal.
Posted Apr 24, 2020
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The Hunt
(2020)
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Steve Schneider
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The Hunt eventually abandons its us-versus-them orientation to declare airily and homiletically that there are extremes on both sides, and that thinking the worst of people just inspires them to behave as badly as you had imagined.
Posted Apr 01, 2020
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1.75/5
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Extra Ordinary
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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If only the film had confined its story to [Rose and Martin's] blossoming friendship and potential romance, with the paranormal activity presented as charmingly odd subtext.
Posted Mar 11, 2020
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4/5
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Sciamma's film is even better than Parasite. ... While the latter leans on an absurdist depiction of Tarantino-style orgiastic violence to achieve its climax, Portrait needs but a few deep breaths, a smile and a tear.
Posted Feb 21, 2020
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4.25/5
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63 Up
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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There can never be an unimportant chapter in the lives of real human beings. For that reason, the new 63 Up demands watching just as much as any of the previous eight.
Posted Jan 24, 2020
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4/5
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The Guilty
(2018)
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Cameron Meier
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Combining Sorry, Wrong Number's radio-drama appeal and Locke's claustrophobic tension, The Guilty might be the best film of [the 2018 Florida Film Festival].
Posted Jan 20, 2020
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3/5
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Borg vs. McEnroe
(2017)
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Cameron Meier
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Like the sport itself, the film is dramatic and beautiful. Tennis has simply never looked better on the big screen thanks to sublime cinematography and a career performance by Shia LaBeouf as McEnroe.
Posted Jan 20, 2020
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2.75/5
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Back to Burgundy
(2017)
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Cameron Meier
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Like wine, [the movie] also requires time and space to breathe, and writer-director Cédric Klapisch certainly gives us more than enough time to indulge.
Posted Jan 20, 2020
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2.75/5
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The Biggest Little Farm
(2018)
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Cameron Meier
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What makes The Biggest Little Farm unusual is it has one hand, or paw, in essay filmmaking, another (unfortunately) in self-promotion and still another in a category akin to Disneynature films. The mix isn't entirely successful, but its joy is infectious.
Posted Jan 13, 2020
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3.5/5
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Official Secrets
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Even if you're one of the few stalwarts who still thinks the Iraq War was worth the agonizingly high toll ..., you will root for [Katharine] Gun because of [Keira] Knightley's astonishing ability to connect to her audience.
Posted Jan 13, 2020
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4.75/5
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1917
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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The finished product is arguably the greatest single-take illusion in cinema history. And it's also the best movie about the Great War since Lawrence of Arabia in 1962.
Posted Jan 08, 2020
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2.5/5
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The Irishman
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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At its heart, it's a unique account of friendship, trust and betrayal between three men. But Scorsese, chasing his mob mania, can't resist involving more characters and vignettes than he can handle.
Posted Jan 06, 2020
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4.25/5
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The Two Popes
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Though cinema more often entertains, it can on rare occasions heal wounds both intellectual and spiritual. The Two Popes falls just short of that accomplishment, but it comes tantalizingly close.
Posted Jan 06, 2020
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3/5
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Cats
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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It's Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy and Ian McKellen as Gus the Theatre Cat who save the musical from mediocrity. Their voices aren't particularly strong, but their acting is the cat's pajamas.
Posted Jan 06, 2020
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4.25/5
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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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Everyone at the screening I attended sat in quiet, contemplative attention for almost all of Hanks' equally quiet, contemplative performance.
Posted Jan 06, 2020
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3/5
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The Report
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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While the result often lacks a naturalistic ebb and flow (perhaps because of Burns' relative inexperience at the helm of a feature), it succeeds thanks to a disturbingly powerful story and yet another wonderful lead performance by Adam Driver.
Posted Jan 06, 2020
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4.5/5
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Marriage Story
(2019)
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Cameron Meier
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In Margot at the Wedding and The Squid and the Whale, Baumbach explored issues of marriage and divorce. But, until now, he's never created anything this emotionally powerful, so overflowing with humanity.
Posted Jan 06, 2020
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