Synecdoche, New York
If you traveled the length of John Malkovich's medulla oblongata, hung a sharp left at the desk where Samuel Beckett's Krapp recorded his last...
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By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Published: November 20, 2008
Fear(s) of the Dark
While some may snicker at "graphic novel" as a term for comic books that take themselves too seriously, the French analogue — bande...
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By Aaron Hillis
Published: November 20, 2008
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
During World War II, a Nazi officer (David Thewlis) receives a promotion and moves his wife (Vera Farmiga), teenage daughter, Gretel (Amber...
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By CHUCK WILSON
Published: November 20, 2008
Quantum of Solace
Those of us who adored Casino Royale, the 2006 reboot of the haggard, self-parodic James Bond franchise, had some trouble trying to decide where...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: November 13, 2008
Sixty Six
Aside from the occasional Yiddish-spewing gangster, Anglo-Jewish life has evolved largely off the radar of British national cinema. That's...
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By ELLA TAYLOR
Published: November 13, 2008
Fling
Titled Lie to Me when it was shot here last year, the first feature by KC native John Stewart Muller (co-written with Laura Boersma) starts as a...
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By Scott Wilson
Published: November 13, 2008
Ashes of Time Redux
Cynics make the worst romantics. They should know better, and they know they should know better. Forced underground by heartbreak, a cynic's...
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By Michelle Orange
Published: November 13, 2008
Sex Drive
Between his unsympathetic family and his demeaning doughnut-shop job, the likable but luckless Ian (Josh Zuckerman) is a prototypical teen-movie...
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By Sam Sweet
Published: November 06, 2008
Soul Men
In Soul Men, actor-comedian Bernie Mac, who passed away in August, plays Floyd Henderson, a present-day car-wash mogul who, back in the 1970s,...
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By CHUCK WILSON
Published: November 06, 2008
Rachel Getting Married
Those who believe that Jonathan Demme went all soft with Philadelphia and never recovered may not be reassured by his latest movie, an ensemble...
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By ELLA TAYLOR
Published: November 06, 2008
Role Models
In every way, this is just a formulaic romp about two selfish slackers getting their priorities rearranged by a couple of kids. Instead of...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: November 06, 2008
Changeling
On a double bill with L.A. Confidential or Chinatown or almost any post-1970 film made about institutional corruption in Los Angeles, Clint...
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By ELLA TAYLOR
Published: October 30, 2008
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Pals make a porn to pay the bills and, in the process of gettin' it on for the video cam, realize that their years-in-the-making friendship is...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: October 30, 2008
What Just Happened?
Barry Levinson's tedious excuse for a Hollywood caper asks us to pity the poor movie producer — in this case, Art Linson, adapting his own...
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By ELLA TAYLOR
Published: October 30, 2008
RocknRolla
After a box-office-catastrophic two-movie run, Guy Ritchie takes another mulligan and returns to "form." A new pack of capering yobs, including a...
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By Nick Pinkerton
Published: October 30, 2008
Pride and Glory
Pride and Glory makes no effort to disguise what it is: a barely held-together string of vignettes lifted from every cop movie ever made, except...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: October 23, 2008
Boogie Man
Those interviewed for Stefan Forbes' fascinating documentary about Lee Atwater end anecdotes about the Republican strategist's dirty tricks with...
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By ELLA TAYLOR
Published: October 23, 2008
W.
The typical Oliver Stone sensory bombardment may be less frenzied in W., but in revisiting the early '00s by way of the late '60s, this...
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By J. HOBERMAN
Published: October 16, 2008
Trouble the Water
By following Scott and Kimberly Roberts, a couple from New Orleans' stricken Ninth Ward, through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, directors...
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By Jim Ridley
Published: October 16, 2008
Lies We Can Believe In
A new kind of war movie for a new kind of war, Body of Lies is about the war on terror being waged on the ground, in the air but, most of all, in...
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By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Published: October 09, 2008
The Express
The story of Syracuse running back Ernie Davis — the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy, in 1961, two years before he...
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By Robert Wilonsky
Published: October 09, 2008
The Duchess
Based on Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, Saul Dibb's costume drama tells how Princess Diana's...
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By ELLA TAYLOR
Published: October 09, 2008
I Served the King of England
Septuagenarian Czech filmmaker Jirí Menzel's latest boasts the same darkly sarcastic and lyrically absurdist trademarks that fellow Czech...
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By Aaron Hillis
Published: October 09, 2008
Blindness
The most recent example of bleak chic, Fernando Meirelles' mostly harrowing adaptation of José Saramago's international best-seller...
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By Anthony Kaufman
Published: October 02, 2008
Religulous
Bill Maher's one-man attack on religious fundamentalism has more bark than bite — a skeptical, secular-humanist hounding of the hypocrites,...
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By J. HOBERMAN
Published: October 02, 2008