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| 1. |
|
05/24/13 |
Poor |
 "...a predictable and unfunny walk through high school socio-political killing fields, its excellent cast notwithstanding." |
| 2. |
|
05/24/13 |
Weak |
 "...a kids' movie by kids' movie veterans that is surprisingly unimaginative.... fantasy epic as product, not magic. In the end, the movie is as generic as its title." |
| 3. |
|
05/24/13 |
Very Good |
 "Gerwig's take on the character is refreshingly without attention-grabbing whimsy... Frances never becomes a manic pixie dream girl." |
| 4. |
|
05/24/13 |
Excellent |
 "If the action is what you expect, what with all the screeches, gear changes, and 'Oh shit's,' it also renders relationships in vibrant reds and blues and yellows..." |
| 5. |
|
05/23/13 |
Poor |
 "The hangover gimmick is missing.... with episodes less antic and surprising than earnest and foregone, the end cannot come soon enough." |
| 6. |
|
05/21/13 |
Excellent |
 "...the film manages to be admiring but also complicated: instead of just singing Plimpton's praises, it looks at how he came to do what he did." |
| 7. |
|
05/17/13 |
Very Good |
 "...celebrates diversity, in a particular, precise, and provocative way.... subjects offer expertise but also something else they describe as necessary for their work, passion." |
| 8. |
|
05/17/13 |
Outstanding |
 "...an incredibly smart, concise, and allusive précis. If it doesn't offer answers, it breaks up the questions into illustrative pieces..." |
| 9. |
|
05/17/13 |
Poor |
 "Although the movie doesn't portray it particularly well, the question it raises is an intriguing one: who controls anyone's life narrative?" |
| 10. |
|
05/16/13 |
Moderate |
 "...it does what you expect, putting Kirk and Spock at their usual odds only so they can proclaim their love for one another." |
| 11. |
|
05/14/13 |
Very Good |
 "...tennis is only part of this story... the film focuses as well on tensions experienced by Venus and Serena, not in broad strokes or explicit storylines, but in details." |
| 12. |
|
05/10/13 |
Poor |
 "It makes for a lively, extravagant show.... But that in turn makes other levels, the more elusive, critical levels, less visible." |
| 13. |
|
05/10/13 |
Poor |
 "You know where you're headed.... And that's the primary letdown in Tina Gordon Chism's film, that it has so little to offer that you haven't seen before." |
| 14. |
|
05/09/13 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...both trivializes and complicates the shifting relationships between subjects and filmmakers, with producers included, in this case, in both categories." |
| 15. |
|
05/07/13 |
Excellent |
 "Gazing on Maisie, you want to know what she knows. That you can't is at once your dilemma and your opportunity, what adults must engage in order to be adults." |
| 16. |
|
05/03/13 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...finds a way to examine the effects of agribusiness, and finds, as Bahrani puts it, a trajectory from corporate corruptions to personal experience..." |
| 17. |
|
05/02/13 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...makes a rudimentary case concerning the consequences of arrogance, ignorance, and violence, whether enacted by individuals, corporations or governments..." |
| 18. |
|
04/30/13 |
Outstanding |
 "The film -- as machinery, as memory, as misapprehension -- becomes the means with which to examine how art and self are constructed..." |
| 19. |
|
04/26/13 |
Poor |
 "...predictable... everyone learns in the most sensational and loudest way possible about everyone else's secret pasts and stupid choices." |
| 20. |
|
04/26/13 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "The film is the good kind of square, and its filmmaking is, for the most part, the good kind of old-fashioned." |
