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Articles in Culture and Criticism

Maria Full of Grace
March 5, 2007 – 5:48 AM | No Comment

I really really liked this movie. Catalina Sandino Moreno is just wonderful in it, perfectly cast, and the scenes when she’s “downloading,” and then the entire flight sequence, had me holding my breath. It could …

The Man with the Golden Arm
March 5, 2007 – 5:47 AM | No Comment

For its time, it’s very good — a bit melodramatic in parts, but it keeps the Reefer Madness propaganda-type lines to a minimum. The best part, really, is the Zosch subplot; Eleanor Parker is excellent, …

The Man Who Wasn’t There
March 5, 2007 – 5:46 AM | No Comment

Nice little movie, lovely to look at, and typical of the Coens in that you don’t know for sure what to take from it, but you don’t mind that much. Thornton is excellent; the writing …

The Man Who Knew Too Much
March 5, 2007 – 5:46 AM | No Comment

You have to feel sorry for a director who’s trying to make a kidnapped-child picture when the child cast as the kidnappee is horrendously irritating, because the audience is not going to understand why the …

Man Bites Dog
March 5, 2007 – 5:45 AM | No Comment

The last sequence felt a little preachy to me, but the rest of it is brilliant. It’s unapologetically over the top; leave it to French film to come up with a mockumentary about a serial …

Making Love
March 5, 2007 – 5:45 AM | No Comment

Oh my God, where to begin. Let’s start with gay bars of the early eighties, in which apparently a gi-gan-tic soup-strainer ‘stache was required for entry. Which is awesome. And actually, the movie’s whole approach …

Lovely & Amazing
March 5, 2007 – 5:44 AM | No Comment

I love Holofcener’s Walking & Talking so much; this movie, not as much. It’s good, but slight: Blethyn’s character felt underdeveloped; certain tangents that looked interesting weren’t followed up; it seemed like a series of …

Lost in La Mancha
March 5, 2007 – 5:43 AM | No Comment

It takes a while to get going, and then all of a sudden, it’s sort of…over. I watched a similar documentary about how Heaven’s Gate went off the rails, and when I compare the two, …

The Lords of Flatbush
March 5, 2007 – 5:42 AM | No Comment

Okay, let’s start with the title card: “The Lord’s of Flatbush.” ACK! So, there’s that. There’s also the faux-fties music, which is so cheesy and wedding-band bad, and I don’t get it — you paid …

The Long Good Friday
March 5, 2007 – 5:42 AM | No Comment

It took us a while to get into it and start piecing together what’s going on; the background of the Hoskins character still isn’t clear, at least to me, and the accents gave us some …