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4/4
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The Decalogue
(1989)
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Joshua Tanzer
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Most of the films put characters into situations in which they cannot obey one commandment without breaking others. Challenges you to figure out how to be a moral person in a world with no easy answers.
Posted May 01, 2021
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Dare
(2009)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
The movie has already made two fatal mistakes from which it has not recovered.
Posted Jul 06, 2010
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3.25/5
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The Definition of Insanity
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
A movie, candid and gently self-deprecating, about the people we rely on never to achieve fame and success.
Posted Oct 19, 2005
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3/4
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Nine Lives
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
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The movie is pleasing in its incompleteness. It colors outside the lines.
Posted Oct 17, 2005
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2/4
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Escape Artists
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
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The movie is about personalities, surroundings, look and style. The atmosphere is the plot. It's, uh, plotmosphere.
Posted Oct 10, 2005
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3/4
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Bubble
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
With an almost-reality style much like (but far down the socioeconomic scale from) 'K Street', it might have an impact on the arthouse audience and on American filmmaking.
Posted Oct 10, 2005
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2.5/4
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Land of Plenty
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
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A caricature that indicts, if not our actual country, then a rather similar country that an outsider imagines America to be.
Posted Oct 10, 2005
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2/4
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Through the Forest
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
Quick, what's the first thing you do as a director trying to make yourself seem cool, besides editing the movie backwards? Right! You shoot your scenes in one continuous shot.
Posted Oct 05, 2005
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3/4
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One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
This is an excellent time to remind ourselves of this story. Another McGovern would have been a good thing to have the last five years.
Posted Sep 22, 2005
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3/4
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The Constant Gardener
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
It would be nice to see Meirelles apply himself to looser, earthier, fleshier films in the future.
Posted Sep 07, 2005
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2.5/4
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2046
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
'Did you get it?' Guy 1 asked Guy 2 in the men's room after seeing 2046. 'Yeah...,' said Guy 2. 'I think so. ... Maybe.'
Posted Aug 15, 2005
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4/4
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Mondovino
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
Mondovino is not a movie that swirls some wine around in a glass and admires the color and praises the bouquet and speaks of the wine's 'complexity' and uses the whole experience as some kind of rarefied metaphor for middle-aged angst.
Posted Aug 09, 2005
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3.25/4
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The Education of Shelby Knox
(2005)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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She has the courage to maintain a loud, clear voice of honesty in the kingdom of hypocrisy. As Shelby tells a radio interviewer: 'I'm kinda scary to tangle with. Sorry.'
Posted Aug 08, 2005
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3/5
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The Lord of the Rings
(1978)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Posted Aug 07, 2005
|
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3/5
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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
(1971)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Posted Aug 07, 2005
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4/4
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Oldboy
(2003)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Three couples were talking out loud as the film started. But before I could give them the traditional New York 'Shut the #%*& Up,' the movie shut them the #%*& up for me.
Posted Aug 07, 2005
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3/4
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Nightingale in a Music Box
(2003)
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Joshua Tanzer
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There is a little action and suspense involved, but the adventure is mostly mental. It works because it's smart, and because of the performances of the two leads.
Posted Jun 13, 2005
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3/4
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The Syrian Bride
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
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What do you suppose happens when a woman in the Golan Heights decides to marry a man on the other side of the Syrian border? What happens is an international incident.
Posted Jun 10, 2005
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1.5/4
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Winter Solstice
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
Sternfeld started with well-conceived characters and simply didn't succeed in making them flesh. These people have traits instead of personalities; goals instead of dreams.
Posted Jun 08, 2005
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2/4
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9 Songs
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Good movie sex without the good movie.
Posted Jun 07, 2005
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0.5/4
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My Suicidal Sweetheart
(2005)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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Parness is a tourist in the land of mental illness, sitting in the air-conditioned tour bus of his mind looking out at the people below & scratching his head for clumsy jokes.
Posted Jun 07, 2005
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2/4
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Cape of Good Hope
(2005)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Dog lovers may give Cape of Good Hope an extra star and a half for the way it uses the canine world to slyly comment on the human world. Cat people can go either way.
Posted Jun 06, 2005
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2.5/4
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Junebug
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
|
It takes one of two things to cut through the critic's desensitized haze - either a smashingly original idea, or the same old ideas re-envisioned with unusual grace. Junebug is a nice example of the second.
Posted Jun 02, 2005
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3.5/4
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The Real Dirt on Farmer John
(2005)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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If we were better people than we are, we'd all be interested in a documentary about the difficulties of farming life - and the central character wouldn't have to be a cross-dressing, movie-making, play-writing, hippie-loving free spirit.
Posted Jun 02, 2005
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1.5/4
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The World
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
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It offers us nostalgia for the present. Remember when we joined the global village? Remember your first cell phone? Remember text messaging? Wow, those were some crazy times.
Posted Apr 22, 2005
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3.25/4
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Crying Out Love in the Center of the World
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
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If every audience-manipulating, tear-jerking romance picture were like Crying Out Love, it would give audience-manipulating, tear-jerking romance pictures a good name.
Posted Apr 19, 2005
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3.5/4
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Frozen
(2005)
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Joshua Tanzer
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It's tempting to call this something like 'Hitchcock for the prozac generation,' except it's not clear that prozac has made it to this part of the frigid north.
Posted Apr 15, 2005
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3.5/4
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Private
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Saverio Costanzo has a two-state solution for the Middle East -- one state in the living room and the other in the bedroom.
Posted Mar 25, 2005
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2.5/4
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The Hero
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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Despite the film's obviousness, it does illustrate the many ways war rends society.
Posted Mar 25, 2005
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2/4
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The Intruder
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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It's intended to puzzle us -- and sure, the little puzzles peppered throughout the film are fine. It's the grand non-sequiturs that are distracting.
Posted Mar 22, 2005
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1.5/4
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Holy Lola
(2004)
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Joshua Tanzer
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Aha! The bad guys are the Americans with their big bucks and heartless capitalism, ruining the world for the humble French.
Posted Mar 22, 2005
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3.25/4
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The Best of Youth
(2002)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Here's the way you want see the film -- the first two hours in your 20s, the middle two hours in your 40s, and the last two hours in your 60s.
Posted Mar 21, 2005
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3.5/4
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Downfall
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
We start with the human Hitler.
Posted Feb 25, 2005
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3.25/4
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Million Dollar Baby
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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There's something about boxing - a.k.a. the most barbaric sport on earth - that the camera loves.
Posted Feb 04, 2005
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3.5/4
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One Shot
(2003)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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A dark, intense exploration of what the assassin's job -- with its secret thrill and its psychological weight -- demands of the people who carry it out.
Posted Nov 23, 2004
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3.25/4
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The Watershed
(2005)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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It's an important window into one of the basic building blocks of American society -- the dysfunctional family.
Posted Nov 08, 2004
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2.5/4
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Des épaules solides
(2003)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Unlike an American, this Swiss girl is worried that her breasts are too big and her thighs are too small. And as for boys - well, she's mostly interested in outrunning them.
Posted Nov 05, 2004
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2/4
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The Best of Schools
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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At least it doesn't lack passion. It's just disappointing whenever the characters feel the need to put their clothes back on.
Posted Nov 03, 2004
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3.5/4
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Lightning in a Bottle
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
This concert, dressing up the blues in its funeral-home best for one last bash at Radio City, seems like a eulogy for this patrimonial art form. Why did it leave us so soon?
Posted Oct 27, 2004
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1/4
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Woman Is the Future of Man
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Everyone ends up in bed. Given that, you'd expect this to be good, racy fun. Given its thinky title, you might at least expect it to be, in some way, profound. It is neither.
Posted Oct 20, 2004
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2/4
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Or
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Earnest and, for at least its first half, plotless.
Posted Oct 04, 2004
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4/4
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Undertow
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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After the opening credits alone, the two women next to me let out gasps of - what? Pain? Shock? Disbelief? Anger? Whatever it was, this was only the beginning.
Posted Oct 03, 2004
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1.5/4
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Triple Agent
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
I should share one helpful tip for staying awake through the whole two-hour exercise - sit in front of someone who snores. It worked for me.
Posted Oct 01, 2004
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2.5/4
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Tarnation
(2003)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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I didn't enjoy Tarnation, I didn't like it, I didn't particularly want to stay and watch it - but I respect it.
Posted Oct 01, 2004
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3.5/4
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September Tapes
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
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It yanks us eyes-first into a place that we, in our living rooms, have known only as a clich.
Posted Sep 24, 2004
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3/4
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Particles of Truth
(2003)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Particles of Truth is a low-budget indie that first seems scattered and off-putting but in time reveals its writer-director's considerable ability and artistic sense.
Posted Sep 18, 2004
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3/4
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Silver City
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Sayles has made many movies like this, and they've ranged from genius (Lone Star) to just average (City of Hope). Silver City falls in-between.
Posted Sep 17, 2004
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1.5/4
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When Will I Be Loved
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Can't we at least pretend that we didn't get into the film business so we could meet beautiful actresses and desperate starlets? Guess not.
Posted Sep 15, 2004
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1/4
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What the Bleep Do We Know!?
(2004)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
The 'Bleep' in What the Bleep Do We Know? stands for only one of the three words the film dares not say. The other two are 'Transcendental' and 'Meditation.'
Posted Sep 08, 2004
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2.5/4
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(undefined)
|
Joshua Tanzer
|
Everything we see seems to spring from the idea of cleavages, and the film itself reflects that -- it's constructed from isolated scenes without flow.
Posted Sep 02, 2004
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