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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has much of the whimsical energy of its predecessor, particularly in its wildly inventive visuals. But it has a slightly different writing lineup, and even its best bits feel like a rehash.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
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Shooting Stars
(2023)
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John Anderson
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It is an inspiring story, no surprise, told with a great deal of warmth.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
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The Boogeyman
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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A horror flick is only as good as its ending; It either delivers on its promises, or it disappoints. This one... becomes a simple monster movie, and one leaves the theater feeling that the last hour and 40 minutes have been wasted.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
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The Color Purple
(1985)
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Julie Salamon
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The ads describe [the movie] like this: "It's about life. It's about love. It's about us... Share the joy." What director Steven Spielberg apparently didn't want us to "share" was the pain, the bitterness, and the anger that gave Walker's book its power.
Posted May 31, 2023
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100 Years of Warner Bros.: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
(2023)
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John Anderson
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There’s no separating the corporate spin from the motion pictures in “100 Years of Warner Bros.” Self-congratulatory, self-celebratory and as superficially amusing as any movie clip job can be.
Posted May 25, 2023
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Being Mary Tyler Moore
(2023)
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John Anderson
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Being Mary Tyler Moore does have its revelations... But a viewer might wonder why now, and when will it be over.
Posted May 25, 2023
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About My Father
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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Mr. De Niro seems largely to have run out of ideas as an actor, and as he has in many previous would-be funny performances he harrumphs his way through each scene employing a range of expressions running from frowns to scowls.
Posted May 25, 2023
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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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All of this added material is superfluous and dramatically inert. Every extra minute feels like a betrayal of the original, in which not a word was wasted.
Posted May 25, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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Movies about the mini-problems of normal people are vanishingly rare these days, mainly because it’s hard to make normal people seem interesting enough to be worth the price of a ticket. Ms. Holofcener has more than managed that.
Posted May 25, 2023
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Fast X
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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Creatively speaking, the fuel gauge is pointing to E and the engines are sputtering.
Posted May 18, 2023
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Master Gardener
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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Though Master Gardener may not be as effective as either The Card Counter or First Reformed... it burnishes [Paul Schrader's] reputation as a great American portraitist.
Posted May 18, 2023
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Fanny: The Right to Rock
(2021)
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John Anderson
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As we learn in Ms. Hart’s very entertaining survey of the ’70s L.A. rock scene, Fanny would have stood out today for several reasons.
Posted May 18, 2023
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Love to Love You, Donna Summer
(2023)
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John Anderson
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It’s a bold stylistic choice, amusingly abrasive: By telling the singer’s story almost entirely through the media of the era, there’s a genuine sense of the time and its aesthetic.
Posted May 18, 2023
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BlackBerry
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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BlackBerry is a biography of a once-great business that is fascinating enough on its own terms without being reshaped to fit a narrative formula.
Posted May 12, 2023
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It Ain't Over
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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[It Ain't Over] has two purposes and succeeds delightfully at both. One is to make some sense of the famously self-nullifying sayings... The film’s other purpose is to re-establish Berra’s standing in baseball history.
Posted May 12, 2023
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
(2023)
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John Anderson
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The heart and soul of the film are the face-to-face interviews, which are far less delicate than one might expect. And all the deeper for it.
Posted May 12, 2023
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Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV
(2023)
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John Anderson
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Ms. Kim strives to remain true to her subject’s sensibilities -- her imagistic narrative amounts to energetic homage -- and this includes not romanticizing his life.
Posted May 12, 2023
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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GOTG 3 is a blahbuster that, like other recent Marvel disappointments, jogs along from one visually extravagant, strenuously jokey set piece to another without offering much in the way of either dramatic engagement or actually funny ideas.
Posted May 05, 2023
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Chile '76
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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The devastating opening of Chile ’76 isn’t quite matched by anything that follows it in the film, but Aline Küppenheim gives a powerful performance.
Posted May 05, 2023
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Hannah Gadsby: Something Special
(2023)
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John Anderson
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The problems seem rooted in distrust of the material: Where Gadsby should be deadpan, the performer is anything but; an appreciative grin accompanies each gag line, not waiting for the expected laugh and thus extorting the audience into giving one up.
Posted May 05, 2023
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God's Time
(2022)
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John Anderson
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Mr. Antebi’s intent is fun, and he stays on point from the start. But he’s also created characters of considerably nutty complexity and provided his cast members with the space to go deep, and catch us off guard.
Posted May 03, 2023
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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Directed and written by Kelly Fremon Craig, it’s a charmer: sensitive, funny and grounded. It’s also a kind of rebuttal to many woeful cinematic trends, foremost among which is dishonesty, or lack of verisimilitude.
Posted Apr 27, 2023
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Sisu
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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Step forward, all of you who love seeing bad guys get slain in disgusting yet creative ways, without wasting time on fancy storylines.
Posted Apr 27, 2023
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Clock
(2023)
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John Anderson
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Ms. Agron gives a highly intelligent performance -- at no time do we doubt Ella’s awareness of how badly things might go, and while we do have questions about her judgment, the pressures she’s under are made palpable.
Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Ghosted
(2023)
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John Anderson
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The action is plentiful, but not particularly well-executed, and neither Mr. Evans nor Ms. Armas is really a comedian.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
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Judy Blume Forever
(2023)
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John Anderson
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It’s a salute, celebration and round of applause all rolled into one.
Posted Apr 20, 2023
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Guy Ritchie's The Covenant
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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How does it honor these brave and essential people to make a movie that isn’t about any of them but rather a near-superhuman fictional character?
Posted Apr 20, 2023
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Beau Is Afraid
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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I can’t say I enjoyed it much, but I was fascinated throughout, and that is saying something. A gonzo fantasia can be fun.
Posted Apr 20, 2023
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Hilma
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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The new film is sensitive to and respectful of its subject... and does honor to Af Klint and her mad visions.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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Personality Crisis: One Night Only
(2022)
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John Anderson
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When the film does dissolve into the past, it is rich.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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B
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Renfield
(2023)
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Amy Nicholson
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The small gags are great, the overall story arc is weak—particularly a quasi-romantic subplot where a cop (Awkwafina) challenges Renfield to turn from heel to hero. Socially adjusted, crime-fighting Renfield? Who in their bloody right mind wants that?
Posted Apr 13, 2023
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Air
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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It plays like pure television by an Aaron Sorkin disciple, and there is no reason whatsoever to see this on the big screen.
Posted Apr 06, 2023
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Paint
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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Mr. Wilson’s balance of enthusiasm and sorrow makes Carl Nargle as lovable as he is odd. And in its appreciation of both eccentricity and pathos, Paint is a work of art.
Posted Apr 06, 2023
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Tetris
(2023)
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John Anderson
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It’s the definition of guilty pleasure.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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It’s a blizzard of rubbish, lurching from one barely explained magical gizmo or beast to another so quickly that none of it has any impact whatsoever.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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A Thousand and One
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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It’s a reasonably compelling premise for a movie. A Thousand and One, however, does very little with it.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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Eight Deadly Shots
(1972)
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Kristin M. Jones
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Out of many such small details, Niskanen built a devastating saga.
Posted Mar 31, 2023
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John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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The purity is admirable. The excitement is notable. Chapter 4 may run nearly three hours, but when we’re having this much fun calling out “Oof!” and “Get him!” the evening passes in breezy delight.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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The Lost King
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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As it ticks along from one small but crucial development to another, this climax is far more exciting than any part of any superhero movie I’ve seen in recent months.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Reggie
(2023)
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John Anderson
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[Reggie Jackson's] disarming honesty about many things is a virtue of the film. Still, there is also quite a bit of delicacy in “Reggie,” whose subject never, even at his hottest, received the kind of media scrutiny other celebrities routinely suffer.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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All that really matters to the filmmakers is a make-it-up-as-they-go drive to lunge from one magical spectacle to another. Even compared to last year’s franchise spinoff Black Adam, the movie is insistently goofy
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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The Innocent
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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Few caper comedies have this much heart, and few romantic dramas offer such an appealingly nutty plot.
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Scream VI
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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With its ho-hum script and flat direction, Scream VI seems to exist only to fulfill a grim corporate duty.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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Champions
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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As the runtime lumbers on to the two-hour mark, with one scene after another fizzling out, its warm nimbus of niceness seems to be the sole reason for its existence.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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India Song
(1974)
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Peter Tonguette
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The film’s supremely unhurried pacing permits us to luxuriate in each image: of a deep-green forest at dusk, an eerily vacant tennis court, a nearly otherworldly full-length mirror.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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Luther: The Fallen Sun
(2023)
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John Anderson
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Mr. Elba is as charismatic as ever, and an unlikely heartthrob for homicidal maniacs.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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La Civil
(2021)
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Kyle Smith
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From the production design to the flat dialogue to the fly-on-the-wall camera work, everything about the film is utterly naturalistic and completely convincing. With Ms. Ramírez setting the tone, the cast is chillingly believable.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Creed III
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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We probably didn’t need a third Creed film, but in his directorial debut, the franchise’s star Michael B. Jordan proves more than capable of hitting the right beats and telling a straightforward story without getting distracted by cinematic gimmicks.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Linoleum
(2022)
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Kyle Smith
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The mixture of forms isn’t quite successful, but Linoleum serves as an impressive calling card for its writer-director, Colin West, a relative newcomer.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
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Cocaine Bear
(2023)
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Kyle Smith
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The supposedly wacky bits aren’t funny, Ms. Banks evinces no gifts for suspense, and the pacing is all off. It’s hard to say whether it’s the script or the direction that is more responsible for the clunky, slow feel.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
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