| Critic |
Review |
Quote |
Analysis |
This Week's Verdict |
Manohla Dargis,
The New York Times |
Colma: The Musical |
"An itty-bitty movie with a great big heart, Colma is about three young people on the brink of that terrifying adventure called life, but it's also about how we learn to give voice — joyfully, honestly, loudly — to the truest parts of ourselves, parts not everyone else hears.
" |
Help! Manohla Dargis has been kidnapped and is bound and gagged in a cleaning closet somewhere in the NYT building while a writer of self-help books for middle-aged divorcees is writing under Dargis's name.
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J. Hoberman,
The Village Voice |
Rescue Dawn |
"Just when it seemed Independence Day might be the exclusive province of Michael Bay's Transformers, MGM rushes in with Rescue Dawn. Nothing if not appropriate, Werner Herzog's latest feature, based on his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, offers a suitably fantastic tale of war, freedom, and fortitude, set in the jungles of Indochina and featuring an immigrant lad who turns out to be just as American as John McCain — or is it John McClane?" |
Jungles, macho men, impossible missions and war. It seems obvious in retrospect that all this time Werner Herzog was just celebrating the American dream.
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Armond White,
New York Press |
Rescue Dawn |
"These visiting filmmakers [Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog] offer a healthier and more insightful approach to American experience than glib, fashionable scorn. . ." |
Like Herzog, America loves an uphill battle and a flawed hero.
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Carina Chocano,
L.A. Times |
Joshua |
"'I hate these people,' Abby whispers to Brad after a dispiriting round of small talk with some people named Abernathy. 'Are we these people?' Encouraging as it is to believe that it's possible to drift ambivalently into their tax bracket, sneering along the way, it's apparent that the point of Brad and Abby's hipsterism is mainly to differentiate them from Joshua, the unfathomable little creep who somehow sprung from their trendy loins. Herein is the clever, if not exactly fully realized, conceit of Joshua, which likens parenthood to drawing straws. You're stuck with what you get — but what if what you get scares you?" |
Carina Chocano gets to the heart of the self-hate that plagues the wannabe liberal over-class in New York. But she leaves the main point unsaid: if you couple with an investment banker named Brad, what springs from your trendy loins is very likely to scare you.
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Desson Thomson,
Washington Post |
Transformers |
"Transformers also underscores how emotionally connected we have all become to technology — our cars, computers, cellphones and BlackBerrys. We personalize our various machines, as if they're the inorganic equivalent of the wet-nosed family dog. [...] We think of those instant messaging beeps as the chirpings of friendliness." |
Some of us clearly haven't gotten out of the office enough lately.
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