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Black Swan (2010): B
Despite a shift from the squared circle to the ballet stage, Black Swan functions as a direct companion piece to The Wrestler, delivering as it does another portrait by director Darren Aronofsky of self-mutilation carried out in service of a personal/professional dream, and one told via corresponding sequences, final image and Dardennes-inspired cinematography. Rather than…
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Tangled (2010): B-
The legend of Rapunzel gets a snarky, modernized CG update with Tangled, Disney’s 50th animated feature, in which the flaxen-haired princess (Mandy Moore) escapes captivity with the help of dashing rapscallion thief Flynn Ryder (Zachary Levi). Stolen as an infant from her royal parents by Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy), Rapunzel has been tricked by this…
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Lourdes (2010): A-
“Is God all-powerful or good?” a man asks a priest midway through Lourdes, though Jessica Hausner’s stunning film offers up two more alternatives – is He neither or, like man himself, is he fickle and cruel? Such questions permeate this aesthetically and tonally controlled knockout, which focuses on Christine (Sylvie Testud), a young woman paralyzed…
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October Country (2010): A-
The past is a villainous ghost haunting the living in October Country, Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s intensely raw, empathetic non-fiction portrait of the Mosher clan, whose lives in rural upstate Mohawk Valley, New York have been, and continue to be, irretrievably affected by familial history. For the Moshers, what’s come before lives on today:…
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45365 (2010): A-
An evocative, wide-ranging portrait of a community told via narrative-free montage, 45365 affords a window onto the world of directors Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross’ Sidney, Ohio hometown, whose zip code provides its title. Uninterested in conventional storytelling, this stunning debut documentary instead conveys truths about everyday routines, relationships, hardships, customs and crisis via…
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Ondine (2010): B+
A clever riff on the legend of the Seal’s Skin, Ondine concerns the unexpected relationship that develops after divorced Irish fisherman Syracuse (a brooding Colin Farrell), while out trawling the ocean one misty morning, nets himself a barely alive woman (Alicja Bachleda). Claiming to not know who she is, the beauty assumes the name Ondine…
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127 Hours (2010): C
Considering his career-long interest in man’s alternately harmonious and hostile relationship with his environment, Werner Herzog would have been an ideal choice to helm 127 Hours, the story of climber and canyoneer Aron Ralston, who spent the titular duration at the bottom of Utah’s Blue John canyon, his arm wedged between a boulder and a…
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Due Date (2010): D
Despite the inspired sight of Robert Downey Jr. punching a young boy in the stomach, Due Date may be the year’s least amusing comedy, a mismatched-duo road-trip saga which suggests that star Zach Galifianakis, only a year removed from his breakout turn in The Hangover, has already exhausted his lovable-absurdist-weirdo schtick. Paired with Downey Jr.’s…
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Fair Game (2010): C
A leaden faux-thriller that, given its inability to generate suspense or provide any nuanced commentary on its based-on-real-events concerns, eventually falls back on one-note domestic-drama uplift, Fair Game sleepily recounts the saga of Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts). A covert CIA agent, Plame was outted by the Bush White House in retaliation for her husband, ambassador…
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The Kids Grow Up (2010): B-
A companion piece to his 51 Birch Street, The Kids Grow Up nominally charts director Doug Block’s daughter from childhood to her departure for college, though while the filmmaker intends the film to be a rumination on his own empty nest hang-ups, it in fact soon becomes a portrait of the documentarian as an insufferably…
