The Young Man's Dream Woody Allen is back from his European vacation. Next, he directs Larry David in NYC and Puccini for L.A. Opera.
The last time I interviewed Woody Allen, at his editing suite on Manhattan's Upper East Side, he was preparing the release of Match Point (2005),...
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By Scott Foundas
Published: August 14, 2008
Send it back: Bottle Shock's corked
Bottle Shock, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is a great concept populated by great actors that works hard to make its...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: August 14, 2008
Flick Pick: Re-Cycle Starz FilmCenter
A young female writer of romantic novels decides to turn to the supernatural for her next book. As she struggles with writing, throwing away page...
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By Cory Casciato
Published: August 07, 2008
Swing Vote Presidential candidates vie (and pander and plead) for one heart and mind in Swing Vote.
Swing Vote is an election-themed comedy thats about twice as smart as you expect it to be and still only half as smart as you wish it was....
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By Scott Foundas
Published: July 31, 2008
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor The Mummy franchise has seen better days.
I was thirteen when Stephen Sommerss 1999 remake-in-name-only of The Mummy came out -- just about the ideal age. Sommers is definitely some...
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By Vadim Rizov
Published: July 31, 2008
Brideshead Revisited A good nine hours lighter than its TV predecessor, Brideshead Revisited gets back to the source.
Making notes in 1949 for a review of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, George Orwell wrote that "Waugh is about as good a novelist as one can...
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By Ella Taylor
Published: July 31, 2008
Chris & Don: A Love Story Portrait of the artist as a young man (and his lover as an old one) in Chris & Don.
A glint in his eye and a grin on his lips, artist Don Bachardy looks into the camera and explains the dynamic of his three-decade relationship...
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By Ernest Hardy
Published: July 31, 2008
Step Brothers With Step Brothers, Ferrell, Reilly, McKay & Co. still don't wanna grow up. And thank God for that.
I haven't seen much at the movies in the past two years that has given me as much unbridled comic pleasure as the sight of Will Ferrell as the...
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By Scott Foundas
Published: July 24, 2008
The Last Mistress Provocateurs Catherine Breillat and Asia Argento put their stamp (or tattoo) on nineteenth-century France.
Catherine Breillat hitches her wagon to the hottest of European stars, Asia Argento, in a highly entertaining adaptation of French dandy...
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By J. Hoberman
Published: July 24, 2008
The Dark Knight Heath Ledger peers into the void as Christopher Nolan's Batman returns.
What a brooding pleasure it is to return to Christopher Nolan's Gotham City — if "pleasure" is the right word for a movie that gazes so...
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By Scott Foundas
Published: July 17, 2008
Alexandra A Russian grandmother visits the troops and brings light to their misguided mission in Chechnya.
Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity, Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra is founded on contradiction. Musing on war in...
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By J. Hoberman
Published: July 17, 2008
Mamma Mia! But your movie's kinda drab. Mamma Mia! drains the fun out of ABBA.
I've always enjoyed ABBA — not in that post-hoc, so-bad-it's-good hip way, but innocently, the way I like Phil Spector. To this day,...
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By Ella Taylor
Published: July 17, 2008
Hellboy II: The Golden Army Big Red returns in a mindless, revved-up Hellboy sequel.
Hollywood's Endless Superhero Summer rolls on with the arrival of Hellboy II: The Golden Army from Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro,...
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By Chuck Wilson
Published: July 10, 2008
Encounters at the End of the World Gleaning lessons from the darkness, Herzog treks to Antarctica in Encounters at the End of the World.
Some say the world will end in fire, some — like Werner Herzog — say ice. Flying in the face of global warming, this profoundly...
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By J. Hoberman
Published: July 10, 2008
Journey to the Center of the Earth Brendan Fraser falls into a deep, deep hole at the Center of the Earth.
At the top, let's be clear about one thing: Journey to the Center of the Earth is more a demo reel than a narrative feature. It's a decent, if...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: July 10, 2008
Zombie Starz FilmCenter
I love zombie movies. I've seen more than fifty of them — including a recent stint of 31 in thirty days — and one of the best...
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By Cory Casciato
Published: July 10, 2008
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson Call hell-raiser Hunter S. Thompson's style what you will, a new doc succeeds when saluting his substance.
In a nation of frightened dullards, there is always a sorry shortage of outlaws, and those few who make the grade are always welcome." So wrote...
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By Jim Ridley
Published: July 03, 2008
Hancock Hancock squanders potential greatness with lame humor and a half-baked hero.
The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis as a dead man, was M. Night Shyamalan's breakthrough, but its followup, Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: July 03, 2008
WALL-E WALL-E blasts off to the future by boldly going where every sci-fi movie's gone before. And that's a good thing.
Many will attempt to describe WALL-E with a one-liner. It's R2-D2 in love. 2001: A Space Odyssey starring fhe Little Tramp. An Inconvenient Truth...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: June 26, 2008
Wanted With its secret boys' club and bloody good fun, Wanted has all of the fight with none of the guilt.
Of the summer's many revenge-of-the-nerd fulfillment fantasies — from The Incredible Hulk all the way down the megaplex food chain to The...
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By Jim Ridley
Published: June 26, 2008
When Did You Last See Your Father? A domineering dad and the son under his thumb in When Did You Last See Your Father?
Nothing snaps a child's head around quite like a dying parent, especially when the parent is a cantankerous old sod like Arthur Morrison (Jim...
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By Ella Taylor
Published: June 26, 2008
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl In Kit Kittredge, all it takes to cure the Depression is a Little Miss Sunshine.
To my ten-year-old daughter, the term "American Girl" means "that store my meanie of a mom — unlike all the other, higher-quality moms...
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By Ella Taylor
Published: June 26, 2008