Film
The End of Poverty?: The Economic Meltdown Is Global
“Colonialism is always part of the expansion of capitalism,” opines Bolivian vice president Álvaro García Linera in Philippe…
Film
The Maid: From Chile, One of the Years Best Movies
Not many films, or actresses, would let the central female role of a movie be underestimated for so…
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Ninja Assassin: Behold My Silent Abs of Death!
Isn’t that a tautology—both ninja and assassin? Redundancy aside, having braved zombies in 28 Days Later, Naomie Harris…
Film
Fantastic Mr. Fox: George Clooney Wants to Steal Your Chickens
Given his preference for static, symmetrical, scrupulously color-coordinated and art-directed compositions, it’s less surprising that Wes Anderson has…
Film
The Yes Men Fix the World: If Only Capitalism Were This Funny
The anti-globalist performance guys who call themselves the Yes Men are masters of forging corporate rhetoric and media…
Film
Red Cliff: John Woos Shorter Cut Is Still Too Long
After a decade navigating Hollywood, John Woo returned to China to make his latest film, but scale back…
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The Messenger: An Oscar Shot for Woody Harrelson?
I’m Not There screenwriter Oren Moverman makes his directorial debut with this moving and nuanced drama about the…
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The Blind Side: Sandra Bullock, Get Off the Gridiron!
Another poor, massive, uneducated African-American teenager lumbers onto screens this month, soon after Precious and obviously timed as…
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Planet 51: Justin Long as Green Space Salamander
Like E.T. in reverse, this pleasantly mediocre CG animation tale lands an astronaut on a distant planet whose…
Film
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe: Lefty Lawyer Is Remembered by His Daughters
Other than a few tasty tidbits, like the fact that he wrote Joseph McCarthy’s will while still a…
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Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire: A Big Serving of Urban Misery
In her broad outlines, Claireece Precious Jones risks sounding like the epitome of ghetto cliché: an obese, illiterate…
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(Untitled): Adam Goldberg as Self-Hating Artiste
Aiming wide and missing, this satire of the contemporary-art scene was seemingly lifted from the transcripts of late-’80s…
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Liverpool: Another Landscape Movie From Lisandro Alonso
As with his previous films, Argentine director Lisandro Alonso’s Liverpool is defined by its trajectory. A taciturn merchant…
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Pirate Radio: Philip Seymour Hoffman Brings Rock Music to Britain
Seven months after its theatrical release in the UK, and two months after its DVD debut there, Pirate…
Film
2012: John Cusack Pretends to Care About CGI Tidal Waves
Completing his multi-film vendetta against the world’s tourist trade, German-born director Roland Emmerich sends the mother of all…
Film
The House of the Devil: Jocelin Donahue Is Trapped in 80s Kitsch Horror
The Devil, apparently, lives in an out-of-the-way gingerbread Victorian, just past the cemetery, where college sophomore Samantha (Jocelin…
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We Live in Public: Web-Cam Narcissism Runs Amok
Documentarian Ondi Timoner lends her credulity and camera to swollen, damaged egos who believe themselves visionaries. We Live…
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Gentlemen Broncos: Only Jemaine Clement Makes It Watchable
Nothing if not consistent, Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre director Jared Hess once again presents adolescence as a…
Film
The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day: Shoot, Kill, Pray
Filmmaker Troy Duffy certainly makes an easy target—at least his former friends thought so when they made the…
Film
The Fourth Kind: Milla Jovovich Is a Doctor? May We Check Her Credentials?
Seventy-one years after Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast snookered a gullible American public with its…