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Out of the Past
(1947)
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Felicia Feaster
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Bitter, cynical, fatalistic and peppered with some of the best crackling, tough-guy dialogue in the genre, Out of the Past is a consummate example of film noir made during the movement's golden age in the '40s and '50s.
Posted Jan 07, 2026
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Darkman
(1990)
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Sean Axmaker
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Raimi sometimes lets the performances get out of control, verging on hysteria or burlesque, but Neeson's tormented intensity keeps the film centered.
Posted Aug 24, 2025
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The Stepford Wives
(1975)
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Michael Atkinson
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The Stepford Wives has moments of bracingly dry-eyed '70s grit, but mostly it's hampered by an inappropriate score, lots of stiff direction, and a sense of being pieced together from a hurried shoot.
Posted May 01, 2025
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Gentleman's Agreement
(1947)
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David Sterritt
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Gentleman's Agreement still comes across as a smart, incisive, and engrossing drama, and although times have changed since 1947, the subject it so boldly tackles remains timely and relevant to this day.
Posted Jan 24, 2020
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The Broken Circle Breakdown
(2012)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's a powerful film that builds to intense, overwhelming emotions with a very human core.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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The Prey
(2011)
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Sean Axmaker
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Eric Valette tries to keep it grounded in action scenes built on a physicality that is more authentic than the overkill of CGI spectacle.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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Wadjda
(2012)
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Sean Axmaker
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Filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour uses the simple story as our entry into a complex culture and a pointed perspective on how women are treated in Saudi society ...
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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The Long Day Closes
(1992)
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Sean Axmaker
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There's no traditional story to speak of here, no dramatic conflict to send the characters off on a goal or motivating action to set a series of events in motion. Rather, Davies offers cinematic snapshots capturing privileged moments...
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1923)
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Sean Axmaker
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Lon Chaney created a lot of twisted wretches, vengeful villains, and criminal masterminds, but Quasimodo remains his most sympathetic screen character.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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Strange Behavior
(1981)
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Sean Axmaker
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The title Dead Kids makes it sound like a slasher picture or a zombie film [but] it's really a mix of mad scientist thriller and revenge movie dropped into a somewhat surreal recreation of small-town Midwest America.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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5 Broken Cameras
(2011)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a mix of citizen journalism and social memoir.
Posted Mar 24, 2013
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Silent Souls
(2010)
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Sean Axmaker
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... slow and introspective, paced in long, still shots that seem to drift in time rather than march forward.
Posted Mar 23, 2013
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Young, Violent, Dangerous
(1976)
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Sean Axmaker
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These aren't angry rebels without a cause, they are thrill killers without motivation.
Posted May 04, 2012
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Come Blow Your Horn
(1963)
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Sean Axmaker
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... like a cartoonish fantasy of the Mad Men sensibility of philandering men who treat the female sex as a buffet for their perusal.
Posted May 04, 2012
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The Visitor
(1964)
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Sean Axmaker
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... neither satire nor romantic comedy... [it] offers a much more layered and unexpected portrait in disappointment and resigned concession.
Posted May 04, 2012
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Blithe Spirit
(1945)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a lightweight comedy built on witty remarks and upper-class smugness (which Rex Harrison so perfectly embodies), but comedy is not Lean's strong suit.
Posted May 04, 2012
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This Happy Breed
(1944)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's quite the study in domesticity and acceptance, and it even presents socialist activism and union strikes as some sort of idealistic fling...
Posted May 04, 2012
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Belle de Jour
(1967)
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Sean Axmaker
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Luis Bunuel's cheerfully brazen satire of sexual repression, social decorum, and erotic fantasies is in the running for Bunuel's kinkiest film, and that's saying a lot.
Posted Mar 10, 2012
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(undefined)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a heady, witty, stylistically audacious, highly compelling, and very entertaining science fiction thriller years ahead of its time.
Posted Mar 10, 2012
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Two Flags West
(1950)
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Sean Axmaker
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... an adult and thoughtful production that explores the conflicts of men who are both enemies and allies in the waning days of the Civil War.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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I Only Want You to Love Me
(1976)
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Sean Axmaker
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... he brings a morose naturalism to the film even as creates an atmosphere of isolation through the performances.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Shakespeare Wallah
(1965)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a bittersweet drama of the twilight of a theatrical way of life.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Election
(1999)
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Sean Axmaker
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Payne and Taylor are equal opportunity satirists and their sly wit dismantles everything from high school culture to suburban complacency.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom
(1924)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a lightweight, fun-loving romantic comedy set on the bustling streets of Moscow ...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Four Times
(2010)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's both an embrace of the comfort of ritual and certainly and acknowledgement of the magic of the unexpected and the accidental bringing change to routine.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Doughboys
(1930)
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Sean Axmaker
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... (Keaton) brings his brand of comic chaos to the front lines of France and manages to turn bad luck into a happy ending in the trench warfare of World War I.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Salt for Svanetia
(1929)
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Sean Axmaker
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This film doesn't simply record the lives of an alien culture, it dramatizes it with imagery and recreations that turns documentary into drama with a passion.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Po zakonu (By the Law) (Dura Lex) (Troye)
(1926)
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Sean Axmaker
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The tension is grueling and the climax is haunting.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
(1924)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a political cartoon of a Soviet satire that knowingly spoofs American stereotypes of "Bolshevik revolutionaries" through the comically surreal odyssey of the gullible Mr. West...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Tenth Victim
(1965)
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Sean Axmaker
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Petri directs with tongue firmly in cheek, lampooning the media obsession with high risk contests and games of chance with cool sixties style ...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Torso
(1973)
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Sean Axmaker
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The motivation is right out of the Psycho playbook, only not quite as convincing.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Going Places
(1974)
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Sean Axmaker
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... Blier's portrait of showy machismo, reflexive bad behavior and empty pleasure is his sad commentary on seventies culture.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Identification of a Woman
(1982)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a film filled with mysteries that are never resolved and images that are simultaneously lonely and lovely.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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City of Life and Death
(2009)
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Sean Axmaker
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City of Life and Death puts a convincing image to the abstract history.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Rules of the Game
(1939)
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Sean Axmaker
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... at once savage social satire and a compassionate comedy of manners with a sour undercurrent.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Sherlock Holmes
(1922)
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Sean Axmaker
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While Barrymore has the profile and the intent, intelligent focus we recognize, this is a Holmes mystery without the deerstalker cap, the Meerschaum pipe or the faithful Watson at his side.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Medea
(1970)
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Sean Axmaker
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Pasolini strips the play down to symbolic, almost abstract expressions of scenes and ideas, like the cinema equivalent of hieroglyphics.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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La Rabbia
(1963)
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Sean Axmaker
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Though created out of documentary footage, this non-fiction production is not a documentary but an essay film, a philosophical rumination by way of a political editorial...
Posted Aug 21, 2011
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The Lickerish Quartet
(1970)
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Sean Axmaker
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You could describe this delirious erotic fantasy as a stag film reworking of Teorema as directed by Alain Resnais.
Posted Aug 21, 2011
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The Band's Visit
(2007)
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Sean Axmaker
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[Writer/director Eran] Kolirin finds bittersweet humor in the comedy of their melancholy lives and fumbling efforts at communication and common ground
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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Her Night of Romance
(1924)
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Sean Axmaker
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Director Sidney Franklin... brings elegance to the silly little romantic comedy and keeps the story moving and the comedy bouncing.
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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Battle Beyond the Stars
(1980)
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Sean Axmaker
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John Sayles manages to work some offbeat science-fiction ideas around the edges of an otherwise derivative plot...
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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Zazie in the Subway
(1960)
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Michael Atkinson
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Malle's movie is an anarchist farce, baldly, bravely approximating the worldview of its titular heroine, a spritely, irreverent, vandalizing brat.
Posted May 30, 2011
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A Time for Drunken Horses
(2000)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a hard yet visually beautiful portrait of grueling third world lives under the desperation of poverty and the terror of war.
Posted Apr 01, 2011
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Double Take
(2009)
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Sean Axmaker
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... more entertaining than enlightening.
Posted Mar 25, 2011
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The Job
(1961)
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Sean Axmaker
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... Olmi paints the anxiety and disappointments, as well as the brief moments of intimacy and communal joy, with a compassion for the people locked into these lives.
Posted Mar 25, 2011
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Ali
(2001)
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Sean Axmaker
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You can almost see him thinking his way through his fights...
Posted Mar 25, 2011
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Inspector Bellamy
(2009)
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Sean Axmaker
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Chabrol's craft, confidence and unshowy professionalism drives this crafty story even as it turns the conventions of the murder mystery inside out.
Posted Mar 25, 2011
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Two in the Wave
(2009)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a loving tribute to the two artists whose names will forever be associated with the Nouvelle Vague and the friendship that bonded them for so many years.
Posted Mar 25, 2011
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The Man From Monterey
(1933)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a simple sagebrush melodrama set in 1848 California.
Posted Dec 21, 2010
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