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Ballerina: From Russia, With Long Legs
Manuel Legris, a French dancer interviewed in Bertrand Norman’s involving study of the Russian ballet, insists that a…
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Two Lovers: Joaquin Phoenix Falls Hard for Gwyneth Paltrow
If Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a lovelorn bachelor in James Gray’s Two Lovers, were 12 years old, the…
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Steam: Like a Lifetime Network Reject
Aimed squarely at the Fried Green Tomatoes crowd, this female-empowerment flick gives the Lifetime Network a good name.…
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PICK The Class: French Schoolroom Drama Deserves Its Oscar Nom
Compare and contrast Laurent Cantet’s terrific The Class with Mr. Holland’s Opus and Dangerous Minds. Note the structural…
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Three Monkeys: Great Photography, Not Enough Crime
Rooted in the old Confucian proverb (“See no evil…” etc.), this slow-paced Turkish crime tale is constructed more…
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PICK Medicine for Melancholy: Young Black Bohos in Love
“How do you define yourself?” It’s not until its third act that Medicine for Melancholy‘s lead male character…
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PICK Ballast: Coming of Age in the Deep South
Lance Hammer’s remarkable, unfailingly intelligent debut film, rooted in the Mississippi Delta’s vanishing way of life, tells of…
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Confessions of a Shopaholic: Yes, Isla Fisher Is Adorable
The Confessions of a Shopaholic we need right now would feature John Thain begging the American public…
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The International: Clive Owen and Naomi Watts Fail Math 101
Tom Tykwer’s The International is one of those movies in which shadowy men meet in parked cars, abandoned…
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PICK Pray the Devil Back to Hell: More Bad News From Africa
Some political documentaries suffer from overselling the urgency of their agenda, but director Gini Reticker’s Pray the Devil…
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PICK Back to Normandy: Burrowing Into Old French Cinema
Determined to cast only locals in his 1976 adaptation of Michel Foucault’s I, Pierre Rivière (also playing NWFF…
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PICK Coraline: A Stop-Motion Wonderland
If Alice in Wonderland were retold by the Mad Hatter, it might look something like the 3-D, stop-motion…
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Hes Just Not That Into You: Nor We With the Movie
The smirky, overbearing, and subliminally hostile romantic primer He’s Just Not That Into You—which sold a regrettable two…
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Ice People: Wheres Werner?
Something like Encounters at the End of the World, only without Werner Herzog philosophizing about the meaning of…
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PICK 2009 Academy Award-Nominated Shorts: 10 Films, Half of Them Good
Don’t expect all 10 entries here, divided into the live-action and animated categories, to be mini-masterpieces. Nonetheless, there’s…
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New in Town: Renée Zellweger Says Youre Fired!
A corporate tool, but a stylish corporate tool, Renée Zellweger is dispatched from sunny Miami to rural Minnesota…
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Pick Waltz With Bashir: The Oscar-Nominated War Cartoon
Ari Folman’s broodingly original Waltz With Bashir is a documentary that seems only possible, not to mention bearable,…
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Were the World Mine: Shakespeare Is So Gay
Tom Gustafson’s queer-centric take on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream teeters between banal conceptualizing and inspired execution. When…
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Outlander: Spaceman Jim Caviezel Wont Share His Ray-Gun With Vikings
I miss Arnold Schwarzenegger right about now, and so does this movie. Instead we have dour, scrawny Jim…
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PICK Wendy and Lucy: Michelle Williams Stars in One of Last Years Best Reviewed Films
Modest but cosmic, Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy is a movie whose sad pixie heroine, Wendy (Michelle Williams),…