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Category: archive

Precious (2009)

Drama Rated R

“…an exercise in despair.

Brothers Bloom, The (2009)

Drama Rated PG-13

I now know what it’s like for those buzz killers who complain about Wes Anderson films. All the adjectives they use to denigrate delights such as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – fastidious, mannered, production designed to death – apply, in my mind, to this deliberate quirkfest. Adrien Brody and

9 (2009)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Another stunning animated entry from 2009, this fantasia from director Shane Acker, an extension of his 2005 Oscar-winning short, is as visually intricate and detailed as anything Pixar has ever done. The storytelling may not be as strong, but you almost don’t care. Acker has envisioned a post-apocalyptic world in which exquisitely detailed rag dolls

Avatar (2009)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

"A tiny detail among the bonanza of visual wonders in Avatar convinced me the movie had achieved not only technical mastery, but something more…"

A Serious Man (2009)

Drama Rated R

“Despair drips from the screen…”

Fighter, The (2010)

Drama Rated R

“All Wahlberg does is stand quietly in the corner, delivering the most authentic, nuanced performance in the film.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

“Did no one bother to mention to Burton that Lewis Carroll’s 1865 story was not a Lord of the Rings primer but, in fact, a comedy?

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

Drama Rated R

Stark yet deeply hopeful, this minimalist, independent drama from director Kelly Reichardt struck a chord among critics and art-house audiences but didn’t go much further than that. Michelle Williams plays Wendy, a twentysomething vagrant on the way to some vague sort of new life in Alaska. She’s something of a wounded animal, so it’s appropriate

Seraphine (2008)

Drama Rated NR

Seraphine won a bunch of Cesars – the French equivalent of the Oscars – and what’s most striking about it is the way it perfectly fits into the respectable, historical, biographical, Academy Award-friendly tradition. That said, Yolande Moreau gives an arresting, nearly wordless performance as Seraphine, the French “naïve” painter of the early 1900s who

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Quentin Tarantino has finally made a movie that means something, though I think that’s happened entirely by accident. And it’s not a happy one. Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino’s Holocaust comedy, and if that sounds gauche, it’s nothing compared to the film itself. The movie may take place in the midst of World War II, before

Recent Reviews

9 to 5 (1980)

Comedy Rated PG

“Parton’s smile wins 1,000 hearts and deflects twice as many harassing come-ons.”

Cure (1997)

Thriller Rated NR

“Like an unsettled mind, this is littered with background disturbances…”

It Ends (2026)

Horror Rated R

“A delectably malleable metaphor movie…”


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