Film
Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness: The Father of Fiddler on the Roof
Joseph Dorman’s film essay–cum–biodoc concerns author Solomon Rabinovich (1859–1916) who, taking as his pen name the Yiddish greeting…
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Tucker & Dale vs. Evil: College Brats vs. Hillbilly Horror
I believe it was Chekhov who said that if you drive a wood chipper into the forest where…
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Happy, Happy: Seriocomedy From Norway
One miserable couple collides with another in this Norwegian cringe comedy. Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen), a chipper teacher of…
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Shut Up, Little Man!: Worst. Roommates. Ever
On the cuss-filled tapes that made them unwitting (and unknowing) celebrities, San Francisco roommates Raymond and Peter provided…
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Moneyball: Brad Pitt Discovers Statistics
Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball was published in 2003, in the immediate wake of The Season That Shook Baseball.…
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Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame: Tsui Hark’s Comeback
Tsui Hark’s visually sumptuous Detective Dee is a strong comeback for the veteran Hong Kong wuxia-maker. Magnificent and…
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Killer Elite: Not Even Close to Sam Peckinpah
Wholly unrelated to the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, Killer Elite is distinguished by one…
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Nora’s Will: Jewish Mourning in Mexico City
José (Fernando Luján) has been divorced from Nora for 20 years. They were married at least as long.…
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I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You: Beauty in Brazil
Road movies don’t get any purer than this visual reverie— Bressonian in its austerity and transcendence, only with…
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Chasing Madoff: The Whistleblower’s Lament
Brimming over with outrage not so much at the eponymous Ponzi schemer as at the government body that…
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Mozart’s Sister: Music History, Rewritten
In heavily outlining the tragedies and injustices that befell the musically gifted older sister of Wolfgang “Amadeus,” writer/director…
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I Don’t Know How She Does It: Sarah Jessica Parker Makes No Compromises
What I don’t know: why these movies keep getting made. Based on Allison Pearson’s 2002 comic bestseller, directed…
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Circumstance: Oppressed Women in Iran
Set in Tehran but filmed mainly in Beirut, Maryam Keshavarz’s earnest, well- intentioned first feature on women’s oppression…
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Drive: Ryan Gosling as Chivalrous Psycho
As stripped-down and propulsive as its robotic title, Drive is the most “American” movie yet by Danish genre…
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The Whale: A Sad True-Whale Tale in Vancouver, B.C.
So soon after the 3-D gore of Shark Night, we get this gentle, Bambi-level-sad documentary about an orphaned…
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Contagion: Steven Soderbergh’s All-Star Plague Movie
Contagion opens on day two of a global viral epidemic. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Beth, an American employee for…
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The Interrupters: Steve James’ Immersive New Documentary
Inspired by a 2008 New York Times Magazine article by Alex Kotlowitz, Steve James’ commanding documentary about “violence…
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The Hedgehog: Preteen Discontent in France
Adapted from Muriel Barbery’s international best seller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Mona Achache’s first film follows two…
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Warrior: There’s Not Enough Nick Nolte in This Wrestling Melodrama
You know those Affliction shirts, covered in skulls, gothic lettering, and tribal patterns, all cacophonous symbols of badass…