| Critic |
Review |
Quote |
Analysis |
This Week's Verdict |
Jay Weissberg,
Variety |
Youth Without Youth |
"Long stuck on completing his unrealized 'Megalopolis' project, Coppola found Romanian philosopher/author Mircea Eliade's novella about the limitations of time a compensating balm for his own frustrations. Perhaps Eliade's investigations into Jungian theory and a nascent form of New Age spirituality also appealed, not to mention the excitement of getting back to the kind of artistic control only possible with low-budget filmmaking." |
It might just be impossible to critique a new Coppola picture at this point without critiquing the artist himself first. Doing both within two sentences is no mean feat. |
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J. Hoberman,
Village Voice |
Youth Without Youth |
"From its charmingly retro credits through its Third Man atmospherics to its bingo-bongo decade-collapsing climax, Youth Without Youth is a cinematic time machine — at once sillier and more desperate in its convictions than such kindred trips to the mystic East as Bertolucci's Little Buddha or Scorsese's Kundun. Variety has predicted that Youth Without Youth will translate to "cinemas without audiences," as if that were the point. This is hardly Coppola's greatest movie, but it's far from his worst — its bid for a new beginning is one from the heart." |
Youth Without Youth is a movie made by a dude who really loves movies and misses making movies. Seems Mr. Hoberman loves movies too. Genuine enthusiasm is a rare sight and it's even rarer that said enthusiasm makes you want to share in the discussion. Good stuff.
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Peter Travers,
Rolling Stone |
The Kite Runner |
"Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel about two boys growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970s hit readers so hard that a film version just had to rile them up. I won't deny that the film is sometimes rushed, oversimplified and skimpy on the details of Afghan culture that informed the book. But the tale still takes hold." |
Travers opens with this but doesn't say a whole lot about the movie for two paragraphs worth of text that follow. So, the movie's good. I guess. Maybe. |
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Lisa Schwazbaum,
Entertainment Weekly |
The Kite Runner |
"It's a big saga — and not all of the book fits on the screen. (How could it?) But the challenge invigorates Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland), a filmmaker who in the past has approached his material like he's examining a specimen from another planet. (The streamlined script is by David Benioff.) In making a movie about the hot mess of Afghan history, a sense of reserve turns out to be a useful tool for peace." |
Lisa, baby, you make it look so easy. |
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Kirk Honeycutt,
Hollywood Reporter |
I Am Legend |
"Akiva Goldsman, rewriting a screenplay by Mark Protosevich for a project originally going to be made in the 1990s with Arnold Schwarzenegger starring and Ridley Scott directing, has made intelligent updates and revisions on this half-century-old story. But the writers retain the vampire element inherited from the literary source. Thus, the film can never quite decide whether it's speculative fiction or a B-movie horror show. It's not a fatal flaw, though, as Legend will be one of the most commercial holiday releases." |
Here's another one where everything you need to read is nicely packaged in a few sentences (they're not all reprinted here but you get the idea) but goes on for practically one-thousand words. You talk too much, Honeycutt. If that really is your name! |
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