Genres
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Now and Then: 'Lincoln,' the Movies, and Historical Accuracy
"Lincoln" is no dour disquisition, no romance of an imagined past, but a heroic, even thrilling drama of compromise and chicanery in the midst of the Civil War. Indeed, it resolves one of the medium's oldest conundrums: "Lincoln" is that rare thing, good history and great cinema at once.
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EXCLUSIVE CLIP & Interview with 'Starlet' Director Sean Baker on Keeping it Vérité with Dree Hemingway
Sean Baker's second feature, "Prince of Broadway," a micro-budget vérité film shot in New York City's wholesale fashion district, won a slew of festival awards after its debut at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2008 (winning Best Narrative Feature) and landed on many Best of 2010 lists...
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Now and Then: 'Your Sister's Sister,' Lost in the Oscar Shuffle
As much as I enjoy awards chatter, this time of year can be frustrating. Spring, summer, even early fall releases that merit attention melt away before the campaigns of the heavy hitters. Lynn Shelton's lovely character study "Your Sister's Sister" won't factor in the Oscar race, and maybe it doesn'...
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Now and Then: After the Storm, Portraits of Tenacity in Recovery
As a resident of a city whose history of storms — and their concomitant unnatural disasters — is troubled at best, I watched Sandy warily but distantly. Thing always look different outside the "cone of uncertainty." The images coming in from the Northeast this morning put me in a more solemn frame o...
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Immersed in Movies: Talking 'Cloud Atlas' VFX
"Cloud Atlas" might not approach the VFX intensity or complexity of "The Matrix" trilogy or "Speed Racer," but it still required the same level of sophistication and flexibility that the Wachowskis demand. After all, you've got six stories about reincarnation spanning 500 years with the same actors ...
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Now and Then: 'Four,' Moving Portrait of Love and Sex in the Time of Craigslist
"Four," director Joshua Sanchez's remarkably honest, empathic adaptation of Christopher Shinn's play about a quartet of lovelorn folks in a modern age, works on you slowly. It's taken me about a week since seeing it at the New Orleans Film Festival to suss out just how complex and world weary it is,...
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Now and Then: At NOFF, Indie Comedies 'It's a Disaster' and 'Supporting Characters' Impress
"It's a Disaster" is something you title your film only if you have a lot of faith in the project. The pun, for a critic disposed to go negative, is almost pathetically easy. Fortunately for writer/director Todd Berger, such confidence is well deserved. "It's a Disaster" is hilarious.
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NOFF Review: Weinstein Oscar-Fodder 'Quartet' Stars Maggie Smith
Like "The King's Speech," "Quartet" is musty and middlebrow, set in an imagined Britain of high class and low jokes. What it lacks in period pedigree it makes up for in a steady diet of quips from the form's reigning dowager, Maggie Smith. In The Weinstein Company's hands, it will likely earn solid ...
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New Orleans Film Festival Review: Melissa Leo Amazes in 'Francine'
Strange and unsettling, "Francine" begins as a miniature, a doll's house of life's loose ends. Subtly, though, it blooms. On the strength of Melissa Leo's astounding performance, it pushes outward into a troubled society of haves and have-nots — becoming, quietly but forcefully, one of the best film...
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Now and Then: 'Decoding Deepak,' or What the Bleep Does He Know?
Early in "Decoding Deepak," the titular spiritualist and his filmmaker son float languidly over Thailand's Chao Phraya river delta, on their way to the former's ordination as a Buddhist monk. "Don't try to make sense of it, just roll the cameras and try to keep up," the director sighs. Mission accom...
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