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Alynda Wheat, People: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) " 'Melancholia's' first half is intriguing.... Director Lars von Trier paints a pretty tableau, but it beats me what he's trying to say." (Read the full review...) 116 words, 11/10/11 Richard Corliss, Time: OUTSTANDING "...amazing and confounding... daunting and delirious, poignant and problematic, borderline-brilliant... a huge idea, the end of the world, and visually rewarding as anything in modern movie creation, but it falls flat in behavioral acuity." (Read the full review...) 1,352 words, 11/11/11 Christy Lemire, Associated Press: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Depression finally seems to have brought out the best in Lars von Trier: 'Melancholia' is his strongest work in a while, a devastatingly beautiful, operatic mixture of all his signature themes and visual schemes." (Read the full review...) 771 words, 11/10/11 Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Warning: This harrowing end-of-the-world masterpiece unfolds with such high tension, it's almost unbearable to watch. Watch anyway." (Read the full review...) 78 words, 11/10/11 Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...a moving masterpiece, marked by an astonishing profundity of vision.... acutely attuned to feelings of despair that nevertheless leaves the viewer in a state of ecstasy." (Read the full review...) 464 words, 05/18/11 Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...a potent beauty of a film.... The luminous Dunst deservedly won the Best Actress prize at Cannes. Her incomparable performance, a slow accumulation of moods from despair to euphoria, never strikes a false note." (Read the full review...) 345 words, 11/11/11 Claudia Puig, USA Today: MODERATE (cg) "While tight close-ups heighten the tension and early scenes resemble painterly illustrations, it's not clear what von Trier's story is trying to convey, beyond wallowing in a dreary world." (Read the full review...) 447 words, 11/11/11 Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Violent death is often a shabby business in the movies.... [But] here is a character who says, I see it coming, I will face it, I will not turn away, I will observe it as long as my eyes and my mind still function." (Read the full review...) 940 words, 11/11/11 Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: VERY GOOD (cg) "No other film director seems to manifest his immediate mood in his work as vividly as Lars von Trier.... even when I was getting a little fed up with the film, I was still almost entirely engaged by it." (Read the full review...) 721 words, 11/07/11 James Berardinelli, Reel Views: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...represents von Trier at his best and worst. Visually and thematically, 'Melancholia' is a rich motion picture, full of nuances. Unfortunately, in his pursuit of an artistic vision, von Trier has thrown logic, physics, and coherence out the window." (Read the full review...) 941 words, 11/08/11
A.O. Scott, New York Times: OUTSTANDING "...an excursion from the sad to the sublime by way of the preposterous, the always controversial Danish director Lars von Trier offers his own, highly personal version of apocalypse.... emphatically not what anyone would call a feel-good movie, and yet it nonetheless leaves behind a glow of aesthetic satisfaction." (Read the full review...) 1,115 words, 11/11/11 Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...meditative, spooky... the Danish filmmaker's most organic, well-rounded work since 'Breaking the Waves' -- fully blooms in the way its stunning opening images preordain. It is unsettling and confounding but also beautiful and damned." (Read the full review...) 242 words, 11/11/11 Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: OUTSTANDING "Its apocalyptic vision is encouraging in its hopelessness; its star, Kirsten Dunst, luminous in her anguish and devastation. Excessive in every way, and yet restrained. Everything and nothing that you'd expect a film called 'Melancholia' to be." (Read the full review...) 1,085 words, 11/11/11 Lou Lumenick, New York Post: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...one of the year's most emotionally resonant art movies.... as essential for serious filmgoers this year as 'The Tree of Life.' " (Read the full review...) 589 words, 11/11/11 Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...a film made to confront and to be confronted." (Read the full review...) 655 words, 11/11/11 Rafer Guzman, New York Newsday: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Haunting and thought-provoking, though its relentless negativity won't sit well with all viewers." (Read the full review...) 357 words, 11/18/11 David Edelstein, New York Magazine: MODERATE "It's a great, awful movie, a nihilist masterwork that settles over you like a shroud." (Read the full review...) 713 words, 11/07/11 Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Violent death is often a shabby business in the movies.... [But] here is a character who says, I see it coming, I will face it, I will not turn away, I will observe it as long as my eyes and my mind still function." (Read the full review...) 940 words, 11/11/11 J. Hoberman, Village Voice: EXCELLENT "...an experiential movie, wondering (among other things) how doomsday might feel.... Von Trier has made a movie about the end of world -- when I left the theater, I felt light, rejuvenated and unconscionably happy." (Read the full review...) 607 words, 05/18/11 Peter Howell, Toronto Star: VERY GOOD (cg) "Von Trier remains a potent writer/director and master manipulator of images and moods." (Read the full review...) 681 words, 11/11/11 Liam Lacey, Toronto Globe & Mail: VERY GOOD (cg) "...begins with a haunting prelude: a bride with a charred, tattered train; birds falling from the sky; a horse falling to the ground and a little planet pinging into a large blue sphere, like a sperm entering an ovum. Life is finished. Then the story begins." (Read the full review...) 130 words, 09/11/11 Karina Longworth, LA Weekly: OUTSTANDING "The Dunst/Von Trier collaboration is one for the ages..." (Read the full review...) 435 words, 11/03/11 Radheyan Simonpillai, Toronto Now: EXCELLENT (cg) "It's a little disjointed, but 'Melancholia' overcomes that weakness with a stellar cast and celestial images that burn themselves into your memory." (Read the full review...) 214 words, 11/10/11
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: VERY GOOD (cg) "A masterwork of grandeur, millennial angst and high romantic style... a broodingly downbeat self-portrait but also the inspiring work of an artist of seemingly boundless imaginative power." (Read the full review...) 569 words, 11/11/11 Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Ambivalence, dread, depression, giddiness, desire, eerie calm... it could have been all over the map, but Kirsten Dunst inhabits this young woman - Justine, an ad agency up-and-comer - as if she has known her all her life." (Read the full review...) 278 words, 10/21/11 Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...hard to watch and difficult to forget.... Kirsten Dunst displays new maturity.... The supporting cast is top-rank..." (Read the full review...) 398 words, 11/23/11 Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...a hauntingly beautiful meditation on depression that is as likely to exasperate as many people as it moves.... an intense, exhausting experience. That may not sound appealing, and for some, it won't be." (Read the full review...) 651 words, 12/02/11 Ty Burr, Boston Globe: MODERATE (cg) "It's possible to get great cinema out of bleakness - Ingmar Bergman made a career of it - but the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier is so certain of his misery that his films run the risk of turning smug. His blues are better than yours, and 'Melancholia' is a gorgeous, boring bummer." (Read the full review...) 593 words, 11/11/11 Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...von Trier has always treated character and motivation as mere bourgeois affectations. His own ideas are so huge - at least to him - that the heroines in his movies aren't full human beings but just paper dolls, made to be manipulated." (Read the full review...) 574 words, 11/11/11 Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: MODERATE (cg) "...all the virtues of 'Melancholia' are original and interesting. Meanwhile, its flaws are so typical and pedestrian.... it is grindingly slow and endless, with scenes that go nowhere and long, long stretches of directorial indulgence." (Read the full review...) 558 words, 11/11/11 John Hartl, Seattle Times: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "Certainly it's easier to watch than von Trier's previous disaster epic, 'Antichrist,' thanks in part to the casting. John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling make an especially volatile ex-couple..." (Read the full review...) 324 words, 11/18/11 Marc Mohan, Portland Oregonian: VERY GOOD (cg) "...anything but meticulously assembled. The cast is nearly flawless, and we haven't even mentioned the marvelous John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling as Justine's messed-up parents." (Read the full review...) 512 words, 12/02/11 Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air." (Read the full review...) 361 words, 11/21/11 Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times: POOR (cg) "...could be paired with Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life' in a double feature of gorgeous tedium and vague, aimless ideas." (Read the full review...) 333 words, 12/01/11 Tom Long, Detroit News: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...has a haunting beauty that invades your soul." (Read the full review...) 442 words, 11/23/11 Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Leave it to von Trier to conceive an intergalactic sci-fi metaphor for a psychological disorder - and then make it work so astonishingly well.... This is a tremendous, daring movie. Get ready to be rattled." (Read the full review...) 760 words, 11/18/11
J. Hoberman, Village Voice: EXCELLENT "...an experiential movie, wondering (among other things) how doomsday might feel.... Von Trier has made a movie about the end of world -- when I left the theater, I felt light, rejuvenated and unconscionably happy." (Read the full review...) 607 words, 05/18/11 Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix: VERY GOOD (cg) "Here's what we learn from 'Melancholia': life sucks, people are awful, we're all going to die, and good riddance. Who says Lars von Trier doesn't like happy endings?" (Read the full review...) 159 words, 11/10/11 Karina Longworth, LA Weekly: OUTSTANDING "The Dunst/Von Trier collaboration is one for the ages..." (Read the full review...) 435 words, 11/03/11 Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: MODERATE (cg) "...there's a disconnect here between concept and execution -- a sort of desultory, moment-to-moment clumsiness -- that makes 'Melancholia' feel like therapy poorly disguised as drama." (Read the full review...) 811 words, 05/18/11 Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...isn't nearly as somber as its title would lead you to believe, and it's so beautiful to look at that it feels decadent, almost luxurious. It's also, for all its weirdness, reasonably accessible..." (Read the full review...) 1,148 words, 05/18/11 Ed Gonzalez, Slant: MODERATE (cg) "...a film of few epiphanies and even fewer insights, and as artful as the film's doom and gloom may be, its symbolism flounders.... it reflects the nihilistic world view of its maker, in this case von Trier's depressed view of life as not worth living." (Read the full review...) 902 words, 09/24/11 Radheyan Simonpillai, Toronto Now: EXCELLENT (cg) "It's a little disjointed, but 'Melancholia' overcomes that weakness with a stellar cast and celestial images that burn themselves into your memory." (Read the full review...) 214 words, 11/10/11 Curt Holman, Atlanta Creative Loafing: EXCELLENT (cg) "...can leave your worldview shaken to the core." (Read the full review...) 687 words, 11/23/11 MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher: POOR (cg) "...von Trier pornifies the destruction of humanity. Not in a Michael Bay way, of course. In a Euro arthouse metaphor sort of way.... it's the most ridiculous metaphor I think I've ever seen on film." (Read the full review...) 734 words, 11/02/11
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: VERY GOOD "It's about depression, but it isn't depressing at all.... it is certainly flawed -- I'm not sure that Mr. von Trier was sure how to end it -- and the tone can be pretentious, even silly. But it's disarmingly earnest at the same time, and rendered in such stunning images..." (Read the full review...) 549 words, 11/11/11 A.O. Scott, New York Times: OUTSTANDING "...an excursion from the sad to the sublime by way of the preposterous, the always controversial Danish director Lars von Trier offers his own, highly personal version of apocalypse.... emphatically not what anyone would call a feel-good movie, and yet it nonetheless leaves behind a glow of aesthetic satisfaction." (Read the full review...) 1,115 words, 11/11/11 Anthony Lane, New Yorker: EXCELLENT "Even if you loathe von Trier, and whatever the weather, please resist the lure of video on demand and go see 'Melancholia' [at the cinema] where it belongs." (Read the full review...) 939 words, 10/31/11 Bob Mondello, NPR: OUTSTANDING "The first eight minutes of 'Melancholia' is so breathtaking, it's hard to imagine how the director can possibly follow it. Think of it as an overture... a kind of dreamscape of what director Lars Von Trier sees when he contemplates the end of world." (Read the full review...) 590 words, 11/11/11 Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: OUTSTANDING "Its apocalyptic vision is encouraging in its hopelessness; its star, Kirsten Dunst, luminous in her anguish and devastation. Excessive in every way, and yet restrained. Everything and nothing that you'd expect a film called 'Melancholia' to be." (Read the full review...) 1,085 words, 11/11/11 Dana Stevens, Slate: MODERATE "This is a hard movie to forget. For days after seeing it, I could call up the sense memory of its sickly green color palette and histrionic Wagner score.... the audience are the ultimate lab animals for these experiments, and I'm not sure what we're being sacrificed to prove." (Read the full review...) 1,665 words, 11/11/11 Andrew O'Hehir, Salon: OUTSTANDING "There is tremendous pain in 'Melancholia,' but also ravishing beauty.... It's about facing life and death and mental illness with as much courage and love as you could muster, and what could be more grand and romantic than that?" (Read the full review...) 1,677 words, 05/18/11
Peter Debruge, Daily Variety: OUTSTANDING "...mind-blowing... doomsday looms as a planet hurtles toward Earth, but as in all great science fiction, this fantastical premise allows the artist to play sociologist.... to study how a tight-knit family unit responds under an extreme set of conditions." (Read the full review...) 1,042 words, 05/18/11 Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: WEAK "Lars von Trier manages to turn the end of the world into a bit of a bore... provides not an ounce of comfort or redemption, nor does it offer characters or ideas with which to meaningfully engage, just ample opportunity to wallow in some rapturous images, glorious music and a foul mood." (Read the full review...) 1,035 words, 05/18/11 Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: OUTSTANDING "Its apocalyptic vision is encouraging in its hopelessness; its star, Kirsten Dunst, luminous in her anguish and devastation. Excessive in every way, and yet restrained. Everything and nothing that you'd expect a film called 'Melancholia' to be." (Read the full review...) 1,085 words, 11/11/11 Emanuel Levy, Cinema 24/7: EXCELLENT (cg) "...boasts the finest, most mature performance to date from Kirsten Dunst... at times, comes perilously close to being a shallow serio-comic melodrama about the end of the world. At others, it evokes the spiritual and lyrical sensibility of Andrei Tarkovsky..." (Read the full review...) 535 words, 09/07/11 A.O. Scott, New York Times: OUTSTANDING "...an excursion from the sad to the sublime by way of the preposterous, the always controversial Danish director Lars von Trier offers his own, highly personal version of apocalypse.... emphatically not what anyone would call a feel-good movie, and yet it nonetheless leaves behind a glow of aesthetic satisfaction." (Read the full review...) 1,115 words, 11/11/11 Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: VERY GOOD "It's about depression, but it isn't depressing at all.... it is certainly flawed -- I'm not sure that Mr. von Trier was sure how to end it -- and the tone can be pretentious, even silly. But it's disarmingly earnest at the same time, and rendered in such stunning images..." (Read the full review...) 549 words, 11/11/11
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