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Funny People (2009): C+
A cardboard theater standee for Funny People in which its unsmiling cast poses in front of mosaic-of-life snapshots above the text “The Third Film From the Writer/Director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up” tempts one to turn and flee this Very Important Movie from reigning cinematic comedy kingpin Judd Apatow. And true to its…
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Timing Out
This week's round-up features my newest Sandbox column for IFC News, Slant magazine reviews of District 9 and The Time Traveler's Wife, and my debut feature for Time Out New York, a primer on the work of Hayao Miyazaki timed to the release of his latest, Ponyo. The Illustrated Man (Time Out New York)The Sandbox:…
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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009): C
Basically Team America: World Police played straight and minus the political edge, Stephen Sommers’ G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has everything an adolescent boy might crave: buff, fearless soldiers, plentiful gunfire and explosions, and opposing objects of horndog desire in the form of buxom redhead do-gooder Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) and svelte brunette vixen Baroness…
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Fast Break
Because of a forthcoming week-long vacation, the past few days have been incredibly hectic work-wise, a situation that frustratingly forced me to skip Funny People and Thirst. Nonetheless, I'll have reviews of both those new releases – as well as the highly anticipated District 9 – upon my return, as well as a feature for…
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The Cove (2009): B
Funded by the Oceanic Preservation Society (and directed by one of its co-founders, Louie Psihoyos), The Cove boasts a rather upfront propagandist agenda – stopping the slaughter of dolphins, for food, in an infamous cove in Taiji, Japan. Yet as far as one-sided activist works go, Psihoyos’ documentary is a quite stirring call to arms…
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Living Well
This week's new releases include You, the Living, the latest phenomenal work from Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor). Aside from that review, however, this link collection is short on positivity. Coming Soon:You, the Living (Slant magazine)Gotta Dance (Slant magazine) Out Now:Orphan (Slant magazine)G-Force (Slant magazine)
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Lorna’s Silence (2008): B+
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Lorna’s Silence received less-than-glowing notices upon its Cannes premiere because – horror of horrors! – it exhibited faint traces of an actual genre plot, a development perhaps not wholly in line with the Belgian auteurs’ realist canon but which nonetheless suits them smashingly. Relocating from their usual hometown stomping ground of…
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In the Loop (2009): B+
In the Loop offers a fictionalized backstage look at American and British diplomatic and government machinations during the build-up to a Middle East war, its scathing Colbert Report-by-way-of-Dr. Strangelove screwball comedy energized by rat-a-tat-tat verbal zingers. Armando Iannucci’s feature debut (expanded from his BBC comedy The Thick of It) is a razor-sharp farce that imparts…
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Backlog
A heavy work (and life) schedule delayed this latest round-up post, which features my latest Sandbox column, another IFC feature, and a host of reviews (some of them a few weeks old), including one for the latest Harry Potter. The Sandbox: Western Expansion (IFC News)Vascillating Voiceovers: A History of Unreliable Narrators (IFC News) Now Playing:Harry…
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Humpday (2009): C+
Striving for naturalism while pivoting its action around a preposterous conceit, Humpday locates truth mostly on the margins of its too-cute-for-school story. Ben (The Puffy Chair’s Mark Duplass) is a married homeowner trying to have a baby with wife Anna (Alycia Delmore). His Seattle domesticity is rudely interrupted when college friend and free-spirit world-traveler Andrew…
