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| 1. |
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01/04/12 |
Outstanding |
 "...impeccably beautiful.... A grand narrative yarn spun from a number of smaller ones... demonstrates the truism that the more we know, the less we understand. Or is it vice versa? Perhaps the greater understanding is admitting how little we can know." |
| 2. |
|
12/28/11 |
Excellent |
 "...an urgently shot courtroom drama designed to put you in the jury box.... [Writer/director Asghar] Farhadi resists the notion of narrative closure. As the great Sam Fuller wrapped up 'Run of the Arrow,' 'The end of this story will be written by you!' " |
| 3. |
|
12/21/11 |
Fair |
 "...served up with a self-aggrandizing, distracting surplus of Norman Rockwell backlighting, aerial landscape shots designed to out-swoop David Lean's." |
| 4. |
|
12/21/11 |
Moderate |
 "...grossly overstays its welcome.... persists in pursuing three separate endings and, by the time they wrap, the movie is less a walk on the wild side than an evening stroll through a well-lit topiary garden." |
| 5. |
|
12/07/11 |
Good |
 "...might be brushed off as curdled rom-com were it not for two things.... first is the depth of Theron's performance.... second is the utter absence of the corny..." |
| 6. |
|
12/07/11 |
Good |
 "...brooding, fluidly crafted.... Gary Oldman's Smiley is less agonized nerd than Asperger brainiac..." |
| 7. |
|
11/30/11 |
Moderate |
 "The tone is impressionistic, cool, and programmatically anti-erotic.... leaves us less gasping in physical horror than grasping at metaphysical straws." |
| 8. |
|
11/23/11 |
Good |
 "...projects nostalgia for the Paris bordello. director Bertrand Bonello's posh maison close is a realm of beautifully dressed (and undressed) whores, alternately languid or high-spirited, if sadly victimized." |
| 9. |
|
11/23/11 |
Excellent |
 "...viscerally cerebral... at once a lucid movie of ideas, a compelling narrative, and a splendidly acted love story..." |
| 10. |
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11/16/11 |
Fair |
 "...insistently sincere and positively sudsy.... it left me cold. The pathos is as unearned as the protagonist's privilege." |
| 11. |
|
11/09/11 |
Excellent |
 "Although hardly flawless, Eastwood's biopic is his richest, most ambitious movie since the 'Letters From Iwo Jima-Flags of Our Fathers' duo, if not 'Unforgiven.' " |
| 12. |
|
10/26/11 |
Moderate |
 "...what the Brits might call a rum movie -- an oddly inoffensive piece and a personal project for its disconcertingly unengaged star, Johnny Depp." |
| 13. |
|
10/19/11 |
Very Good |
 "...the ending is contrived to give the audience exactly what it wants, without irony -- and, providing minds are engaged along with feelings, they'll know it." |
| 14. |
|
10/19/11 |
Very Good |
 "...a deft, old-school psychological thriller (or perhaps horror film) that relies mainly on the power of suggestion and memories of hippie cult crazies." |
| 15. |
|
09/14/11 |
Very Good |
 "...has the sustained flow of a musical composition.... Dour yet affirmative, this laconic, deliberately paced, beautifully shot movie seeks the archaic in the ordinary -- and, though somewhat off-putting in its diffidence, largely succeeds." |
| 16. |
|
09/14/11 |
Very Good |
 "...a sleek, tense piece of work... a lovingly assembled, streamlined pastiche of '80s movies and TV.... It's a machine, but it works." |
| 17. |
|
09/07/11 |
Very Good |
 "...remarkably fresh... Swedish footage is distinguished from the American tele-journalism of the period by its interest in hearing from the most articulate proponents of black power and the programmatic nonviolent attempt to 'intensify the struggle.' " |
| 18. |
|
09/07/11 |
Very Good |
 "...a haunting portrait of the chess genius.... The sorry spectacle of the ranting codger never effaces the image of the boy concentrating his entire being over a chessboard. You have to love that kid and pity him." |
| 19. |
|
08/31/11 |
Very Good |
 "...visually sumptuous.... Magnificent and cheesy, the latest and most proudly absurd of Chinese historical spectaculars... a cinematic comic book for people who are sick of the mode." |
| 20. |
|
08/31/11 |
Fair |
 "...an ambitious attempt to cage the career of legendary French singer-songwriter-scamp Serge Gainsbourg.... less a movie than a pageant with a posh, retro look." |
