2017

Phil Fava compares the big-picture concepts and emotions being explored in 1984’s ‘Iceman’ to a 2017 movie with similar concerns, a different approach, and the same title.

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Newcomers tackle teen suicide, and don’t quite get it, in ‘Just Say Goodbye’ starring Max MacKenzie.

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‘Nothing to Do’ feels like film school project about hospice.

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The film is not good. There is very little good within it. It is not, however, bad. It does not have enough of substance to reach bad. It is uninterested in bad. It transcends this simple human binary. It is merely desolation. It is flavorless gum. It is an empty cardboard box. It is absence in the shape of a film.

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‘The Rider’ is a slow trot through broken dreams resolved by hope and friendship.

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At Panic Fest 2018 now, ‘Lowlife’ takes your adrenaline and boosts it in an intense and bloody thrill-ride even Tarantino would love.

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This Scott Cooper western starring Christian Bale grapples with themes of post-war reconciliation, genocide, honor, and transcending notions of “other.”

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Showing at Panic Fest this weekend in Kansas City, ‘The Cured’ starring Ellen Page, is a zombie movie as sociopolitical allegory.

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There’s no doubt that the free press plays an essential role in a democracy, and the timeliness of this picture can’t be disputed. It’s just too bad Spielberg doesn’t trust his audience enough to let them come to those conclusions on their own.

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Not even Thor himself on a horseback or the great cast of Michael Shannon, Michael Peña or Trevante Rhodes who is severely underused here, could help this movie out.

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Phantom Thread oozes purpose with each scrap of its being, and represents some of the best work of Paul Thomas Anderson’s career (and some of the funniest).

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For my money The Post is the biggest waste of potential of the year and the new ultimate signifier of how much Spielberg has fallen as an artist. Never before has it been so obvious that his teeth have just dulled. This film make Ken Burns seem edgy and political, and this is the EXACT WRONG MOMENT TO BE DOING THAT.

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Spielberg’s newest feature champions freedom of the press at a time when we need it the most.

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The right movie for the right moment directed by the right man at the wrong time, The Post has a lot of interesting things to say, yet often gets in the way of itself when trying to say them.

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She might not have the expensive clothes and refined tastes of the other skaters, but her attitude, bearing, and the company she keeps is what will ultimately sink her. The question then becomes one of fate, and whether Tonya Harding ever really had a chance.

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