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You Talking to Me!?!
Empty, pointless and stupid, the barrage of gunfire called Welcome to the Punch is another unappealing entry in the overworked British gangster genre. Clumsily written and looking like it was directed...
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The Way the Wind Blows
Robert Redford is back, as producer, director and star of The Company You Keep, and he must keep his talent preserved in a drawer with his old socks, because in the noxious ozone of today’s films, he...
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Death by 101 Minutes
Dating since high school, two cute young newlyweds find that marriage in troubled economic times can’t survive solely on love and unemployment checks. Alice (Juno Temple) is smart but can’t get a job....
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Identity Crisis
Part psychological thriller, part supernatural horror flick and 100 percent phony, 6 Souls benefits from a sound cast working hard to produce goose bumps, but even Julianne Moore fails to work...
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Last Words
There are several obvious reasons to applaud the arrival of Lucky Guy, the splendidly thoughtful and robustly entertaining new play about the life and career of Pulitzer Prize-winning New York...
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If the Shoe Fits
Audiences cheering so loudly at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre that they drown out the noise of the traffic on West 45th Street have turned a loud, vulgar, mediocre drag show called Kinky Boots into an...
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Living Online
Jason Bateman Another cautionary tale about the dangers of technology, Disconnect has a lot to say about how we live now—online, 24/7, drained of love, faith, the joy of serendipity and the pleasure of...
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Making the Big Time
Movies about baseball heroes usually suffer from one of two problems: too much about the sport and not enough about the hero, or too much heroism and not enough baseball. 42, the latest in a long line...
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Much Ado About Nothing
Talk about lousy timing. On the heels of his triumphant, Oscar-winning Argo, Ben Affleck now has the bad luck to have to suffer through the postponed release of To the Wonder, a lethally boring and...
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Stranger Than Fiction
French auteur and film festival favorite François Ozon, a specialist in psychosexual thrillers such as Swimming Pool and Under the Sand (both starring the alluring Charlotte Rampling), lost his edge...
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Tasteless Tale From the Crypt Offers Nothing but Blood and Guts
Robert Bartleh Cummings, better known as Rob Zombie, heavy metal screamer and director of such trash as House of 1000 Corpses, is a goremeister who turns movies into the cinematic equivalent of sonic...
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The Best Film About Impoverished Farmers Since Renoir’s The Southerner
Zac Efron and Dennis Quaid star in At Any Price. Movies about farming interest me about as much as the devaluation of the Chinese yuan. So it is with querulous satisfaction that I find At Any Price, an...
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Depressing Road Trip Flick Revs But Goes Nowhere
Colin Firth and Emily Blunt in Arthur Newman. Two lost souls on the highway of life—that’s what a well-acted but benign little trifle called Arthur Newman is about. Wallace Avery (Colin Firth) is a...
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Outdoor Epic Has Its Lulls but Never Drifts from Awe-inspiring
Kon-Tiki is an epic of awesome achievement. As a narrative feature in which inspired actors re-enact the real-life adventures of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl on his legendary 5,000-mile voyage by...
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In I’ll Eat You Last, Bette Midler Gives Raucous If One-Dimensional Take on...
Bette Midler channels Sue Mengers. Sue who? Aside from the fact that she doesn’t sing, the only trepidation I’ve encountered about Bette Midler’s sensational one-woman show I’ll Eat You Last, about the...
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What Maisie Knew Is a Graceful and Intelligent Take on Henry James’s 1897 Novel
Julianne Moore and Onata Aprile in What Maisie Knew. Acutely observed, subtly but sharply written and expertly acted, What Maisie Knew transports Henry James’s 1897 novel to contemporary Manhattan with...
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The Iceman: Michael Shannon Dominates the Screen as Real-Life Jersey City...
The Iceman charts the dual trajectory of a modern Jekyll and Hyde with growing horror. One of the most versatile and magnetic actors on the screen today, Michael Shannon has established such a...
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Bawdy Bloodsucker Flick Kiss of the Damned Is Not a Film You Can Sink Your...
The Kiss of the Damned. Just what we need—another sophomoric, oversexed vampire movie. You can’t accuse writer-director Xan Cassevetes of lacking imagination. Well photographed, lurid enough to cause...
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A Triumph on the Page, The Great Gatsby Founders Miserably on the Silver Screen
As the new Gatsby, Leonardo DiCaprio is hopeless, a little boy in his first After Six tuxedo. Let’s face it. The Great Gatsby never has been—and probably won’t ever be—successfully turned into a great...
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Gore Galore: Two New Horror Flicks Are a Disappointing Blend of Blood and Guts
Aftershock Two horror flicks open this week after making the film-festival rounds, both more horrible than horrifying. Enter at your own risk. Aftershock is the latest shlockfest from cult...
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