‘Plus One’ effectively uses the tropes of the rom-com genre to conform to the best parts of it while blazing a path entirely its own.
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Warren Cantrell
A breezy little documentary with modest ambitions and a surplus of reverence for its subject, ‘Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk’ makes par.
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[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down] A straightforward hagiography piece that celebrates its subject with little critical analysis, Botero is an instructive albeit unambitious documentary. Tracking the creative growth of Columbian painter/sculptor Fernando Botero, the film hits all of the expected notes of the artist’s professional maturation using testimonials from family members, curators, art historians, and […]
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[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down] A rom-com that lives in the periphery of the world it creates for itself, Photograph endeavors (yet too often fails) to tell a familiar story without the traditional narrative building blocks of its genre. This is somewhat ironic, too, for the story is steeped in the traditions of its characters, […]
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Using a refreshing, unique spin on a classic high school yarn, ‘Banana Split’ succeeds in crafting a story that’s both entertaining and empowering.
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Bolstered by an against-type performance by Hawke, and a quiet but strong turn by Rapace, ‘Stockholm’ might just suck you in like the syndrome.
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‘William’ struggles to overcome its clunky dialogue and try-hard script to ascend to anything more than a basic retread of better, more ambitious fare.
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‘Division 19’ is The Hunger Games meets The Truman Show, with just a hint of V for Vendetta, yet bad. Really, really bad.
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‘Dragged Across Concrete,’ like Mel Gibson’s casting in it, works better in theory than in practice if a person thinks about it for more than a minute.
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‘Finding Steve McQueen’ is an interesting (albeit uneven) trifle, pairing true crime hijinks with meaningful introspection and character work.
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[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up] A sober exploration of family, tradition, honor, greed, and colonialism, Birds of Passage (showing now at the Tivoli) slices through expectations to present a film that is laser-focused on a specific time, people, and place. Tracking the birth of the modern drug trade in Columbia during the second half of […]
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Captain Marvel is the story of an alien-human hybrid with near-limitless powers and a rare example of a female-fronted superhero film in a genre that often positions women in supporting roles. This got Scene-Stealers thinking about the best examples of female comic book superheroes in film, as there have been many great examples (along with several bad ones) over the years.
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[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down] A diabolical sleight-of-hand trick that suckers its audience in with promises of mayhem spanning two different genres, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot has redefined what is possible in the realm of cinematic let-downs. Skimping on the Hitler and Bigfoot action only to delve into the heart […]
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‘Then Came You’ seems content to just trample over Manic Pixie Dream Girl story beats and characters that don’t offer anything new to the formula.
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‘Vice’ follows up McKay’s masterful work with ‘The Big Short’ by blending dynamic character work with a large-scale sociopolitical autopsy.
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