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A Liar’s Autobiography: Graham Chapman Is Still Dead
Bent on futzing with the form, this biopic bears the strong authorial stamp of its subject, but nonetheless…
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The Sessions: John Hawkes and Helen Hunt Have Serious Sexytime
“You were really and truly inside me,” Helen Hunt’s sex surrogate Cheryl assures her client, 36-year-old Mark O’Brien…
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The Loneliest Planet: A Trek Rudely Interrupted
The Loneliest Planet begins with a close-up of a beautiful woman, naked and trembling. It’s not what it…
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Fat Kid Rules the World: A Locally Shot Coming-of-Age Tale
In his first directing gig, adapting the 2003 young-adult coming-of-age novel by K.L. Going, actor Matthew Lillard (Scream,…
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Pusher: A Remake We Don’t Need
Less a bastardization than simply a watered-down and superfluous redo, Pusher faithfully mimics Nicolas Winding Refn’s 1996 Danish…
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The Other Dream Team: Lithuanian Basketballers at the Olympics
In 1992, Lithuania participated in its first Olympics as a sovereign country. Its basketball team featured a number…
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Cloud Atlas: WTF, Wachowskis?
The trailer for this gargantuan adaptation of David Mitchell’s 2004 novel, directed by two Wachowski siblings and Tom…
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Fun Size: An Enjoyable Update on John Hughes’ Formula
Gossip Girl and The O.C., Josh Schwartz’s teen TV shows, are sly bait-and-switches. Both are easily marketable for…
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Two Years at Sea: Ben Rivers’ Cinema of Slow
It is difficult for residents of these sprawling United States to regard anything within the snug British Isles…
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War of the Buttons: Enough With the World War II Movies, France!
After The Chorus and Paris 36, Christophe Barratier—one of France’s least interesting living directors—offers another gooey slice of…
Film
Tom Waits Returns to the Screen in Seven Psychopaths
In Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, a prune-faced, simian-mouthed sexagenarian sits by the road in an old suit and…
Film
Somewhere Between: The Pitfalls of Chinese Adoption
As the documentary equivalent of a group character study, Somewhere Between isn’t as sharply focused as you might…
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Hellbound?: Theologians (and Others) Consider the Fiery Afterlife
Pope John Paul II made hell briefly unfashionable, but the administration of Benedict XVI has retrieved Gehenna from…
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Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel: Remembering the Late Fashion Icon
Raconteuse, epigrammatist, and mythomaniac, peerless fashion editor Diana Vreeland (1903–1989) might have loved words as much as she…
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Detropia: The Fall and Rise of the Motor City
When it comes to cost-cutting, downsizing, and philosophical and practical compromise, how low is it possible to go…
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Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff as Voyeur and Ex-Slave
English filmmaker Andrea Arnold’s atypical, impressionistic approach to Emily Brontë is her adaptation’s main hook. As with her…
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Tai Chi Zero: Kung Fu Meets Steampunk
Give some points to a genre flick whose style mashup reflects uneasy relations between Asia and the West…
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Seven Psychopaths: Colin Farrell as a Troubled Hollywood Writer
Writer/director Martin McDonagh contrives to have his hero, an Irish screenwriter with the “get it” name Marty (Colin…
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The Paperboy: Nicole Kidman as a Southern Slut
Precious director Lee Daniels’ Southern Gothic noir pulp presents itself with the doubtful come-hither hospitality of a gator-filled…