Given that France is America’s go-to national punching bag for milquetoast xenophobic jokes, it is a testimony to her towering talent that Marion Cotillard is an Oscar-winning box office draw. Even reducing her physical presence by a third in her latest, Rust and Bone, does nothing to stunt her on-screen magnetism, or what the French […]
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Check Out Some Hot Briefs
The 2013 Oscar-nominated Shorts sizzle Ryan Syrek Outside of the unspeakable fame and groupies, the best part of being a movie critic is getting a peek at stuff you may otherwise never see. One of my favorite annual traditions is checking out what the Academy felt were little films worthy of a little guy made […]
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A Paler Shade of White
A once-beautiful woman who has an uncomfortable relationship with her brother is disintegrating into a skeletal hag. But enough about Angelina Jolie. Snow White and the Huntsman features Charlize Theron rising above her Helen-of-Troy beauty to once more deliver a wicked performance that proves there’s more going on under her hood than atop her perfect […]
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Comedians United
It seems like an odd way to start a review for a movie in which Will Ferrell tries to make Zach Galifianakis touch his testicles on stage during a debate, but The Campaign has a clever message. Writers Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell move beyond the standard skewing of attack-ad politics and candidates that are […]
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Re-enrolling in the Aisles
Around the time when Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) goes off on a whisker-thinly veiled diatribe about the death of original thought and the lazy recycling of past ideas that kinda sucked to begin with, you realize 21 Jump Street knows how terrible it should be. In the subsequent scene, when Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) […]
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All in the Family
As she herself puts it, Lynn Shelton has made three movies in a row featuring three characters in one location. This goes a long way in explaining not only her priorities as a filmmaker (the actor is king) but also what her movies feel like: focused and precise but still subject to eruptions. 2008’s My […]
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Slight Sting
There should be no doubt that director Michel Gondry ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ) is a genius; unfortunately, his 3D action/comedy spectacle, The Green Hornet , isn’t. It’s really more of a by-the-book bro-mantic comedy at heart, which is no surprise since it was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg ( […]
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DVD Discovery: Mama’s Family
Let’s give it up for the ladies. Once the purview of mustachioed men with Italian last names, the “cops and crooks” movie genre has flung open the doors to the clubhouse. Last year gave us several films in the genre with strong female leads instead of damsel-in-distress love interests. Playing an Aussie-accented version of The […]
