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Carol

25/12/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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The art of seduction is at the fore in Todd Hayne’s Carol. Cultivated right from the opening shot, the strings of the soundtrack swoop you off your feet and carry you into a gritty 1950’s New York City that feels nostalgic regardless of your familiarity with time and or place. Introducing us to the streets, the people, and the hidden spaces found behind windows and through reflections, every detail is manicured and every image is softened with a warm hue. The movie’s éclat is the result of the creative choices and artistic talent behind the production—a multilayered effort inherent in filmmaking, though it is rarely so elevated and pronounced. Production design and art direction by Judy Becker and Jesse Rosenthal, costume design by Sandy Powell, and cinematography by Ed Lachman (wielding a 16mm camera) all contribute to a tactile atmosphere of period perfection. In a word, it’s seductive. And we haven’t even taken the narrative into account.
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Edina Cinema

Director: Todd Haynes
Producers: Elizabeth Karlsen, Tessa Ross, Christine Vachon, Stephen Woolley
Writer: Phyllis Nagy, Patricia Highsmith (novel)
Cinematographer: Edward Lachman
Editor: Affonso Gonçalves
Music: Carter Burwell
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Jake Lacy, Sarah Paulson, John Magaro, Cory Michael Smith
 
Runtime: 118m.
Genre: Drama
Countries: USA
Premiere: May 17, 2015 – Cannes Film Festival
US Theatrical Release: November 20, 2015
US Distributor: The Weinstein Company


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Spotlight

6/11/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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“The Church thinks in centuries.”  This statement—delivered by a cynical lawyer played by Stanley Tucci in Tom McCarthy’s new movie Spotlight—painfully underscores the apathy that seems to pervade public opinion when it comes to the moral manipulations and power exploitations wielded by the Catholic Church. Everyone claps their hands and says “hallelujah” when the Pope acknowledges global warming but then collectively turns their eyes toward the floor when the Church, time after time, attempts to evade responsibility for the unchecked sexual abuse of children. What else could explain this phenomenon other than the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has carefully honed the art of influence over Western society for nearly 20 centuries?
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Area Theaters

Director:
Tom McCarthy
Producers: Blye Pagon Faust, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, Michael Sugar
Writer: Josh Singer, Tom McCarthy
Cinematographer: Masanobu Takayanagi
Editor: Tom McArdle
Music: Howard Shore
Cast: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, John Slattery
 
Runtime: 128m.
Genre: Drama
Countries: USA
Premiere: September 3, 2015 – Venice Film Festival
US Theatrical Release: November 6, 2015
US Distributor: Open Road Films

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Cemetery of Splendor

30/10/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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For the past 15 years—over eight feature films and at least twice that many shorts—Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been carefully building a sublime universe where the tangible casually mixes with the abstract, sometimes to the point where those two components begin to merge. A magical boy materializes from a small object; a man shapeshifts into a tiger; vapors—either contained by a ventilation fan or seeping from the jungles—embody the secret loves and fears of people; a mother is an apologetic cannibal; and spirits, in various forms, leisurely appear to commingle with the living. Although abstraction has played a large role in all his narratives, the conceptual pull on Weerasethakul’s languid form of storytelling has become much more powerful since his Palme d’Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), which was followed by a five year interlude packed with projects, exhibitions and short films (including Mekong Hotel) that quietly exist in spaces unhinged from the conventions of narrative features. Perhaps not without consequence, this period also represents a roiling political atmosphere in Thailand, marked by protests and capped with a military coup that tossed most civil liberties out the window.
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Walker Art Center

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producers: Charles de Meaux, Simon Field, Hans W. Geissendörfer, Keith Griffiths, Michael Weber, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Cinematographer: Diego Garcia
Editor: Lee Chatametikool
Cast: Jenjira Pongpas Widner, Banlop Lomnoi, Jarinpattra Rueangram, Petcharat Chaiburi, Sujittraporn Wongsrikeaw, Bhattaratorn Senkraigul
 
Runtime: 122m
Genre: Drama
Country: Thailand/UK/France/Germany/Malaysia/South Korea/Mexico/USA/Norway
Premiere: May 18, 2015 – Cannes Film Festival
US Distributor: Strand Releasing


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The Look of Silence

7/8/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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In 1965, a failed coup marked a significant shift in power in Indonesia. The country’s first president, Sukamo, was ousted in favor of Major General Suharto, who successfully suppressed the attempted coup with military might. The Indonesian Communist Party was blamed for the crisis, and simmering anti-communist sentiment exploded into a barbaric display of power and violence. Indiscriminate lists of communists were made, young street thugs were recruited as death squads (so the purge would be seen as an act of citizens rather than the military, even though everyone knew better), and, a year later, somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million people were dead. Those responsible for the purge and the gross misconduct of authority still hold power in Indonesia today and are hailed, at least in public, as heroes.
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Lagoon Cinema

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen

Runtime: 103m.
Genre: Documentary
Country: Denmark/Indonesia/Finland/Norway/UK/Israel/France/USA/Germany/Netherlands
Premiere: August 28, 2014 – Venice Film Festival
US Theatrical Release: July 17, 2015
US Distributor: Drafthouse Films



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Love at First Fight

10/7/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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One of the unfortunate effects of the non-too-clever English title of Thomas Cailley’s Love at First Fight (which completely discards the original French title Les combattants) is the unintentional association with Stan Dragoti’s spoofy 1979 vampire film Love at First Bite. In a perfect world, that accidental reference won’t be a part of your memory bank because the intentions behind the cheeky wordsmithing—to underscore this movie’s comical qualities—couldn’t be more dead on. Although you would never know it from the synopsis (an apathetic young man falls in love with a combative young woman with survivalist ambitions), Love at First Fight is nothing short of a screwball comedy with some 21st century dystopian ethos and mild social commentary thrown in for good measure.
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The Film Society of Minneapolis St Paul

Director: Thomas Cailley
Producer: Pierre Guyard
Writers: Thomas Cailley, Claude Le Pape
Cinematographer: David Cailley
Editor: Lilian Corbeille
Music: Philippe Dashaies, Lionel Flairs, Benoit Rault
Cast: Adèle Haenel, Kévin Azaïs, Antoine Laurent, Brigitte Roüan, William Lebghil, Thibaut Berducat, Nicolas Wanczycki, Frédéric Pellegeay, Steve Tientcheu

Runtime: 98m.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Premiere: May 17, 2014
US Theatrical Release: May 22, 2015
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

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Terminator Genisys

1/7/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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Alan Taylor’s Terminator Genisys arrives under a circumstantial cloud, which could quickly turn into a halo depending on box office returns: it’s the fifth chapter in a now iconic cinematic saga that started 30 years ago; it’s wagering a 170 million dollar bet that it can resurrect a franchise that has arguably lost its footing; it claims the return of the actor who will forever be indentified with the series (to the point where he was known as the Governator in his political deviations); it lands in a prophetic moment of its own making—the Internet, drones, unregulated government surveillance, and fierce fighting from numerous rebellious groups worldwide—all on the eve of the day the U.S. declared Independence some 239 years ago, now commonly celebrated with flames and booze. Although these circumstances are specific to Terminator Genisys, they are by no means unique. Nearly every summer blockbuster comes with a certain set of antecedent marketing flares and extratextual information molded, sometimes infelicitously, for a certain amount of success. Given the reservoir of thematic possibilities for Terminator Genisys, it’s completely confounding how its creators could be so lazy and, more to the point, creatively irresponsible with the material. The result is a sad sack of an action film that flirts with using Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robotic charisma only enough to keep you from walking out.
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Area Theaters

Director:
Alan Taylor
Producers: David Ellison, Dana Goldberg
Writers: Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier, James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd
Cinematographer: Kramer Morgenthau
Editor: Roger Barton
Music: Lorne Balfe
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clark, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, Courtney Vance, Lee Byung-hun

Runtime: 126m.
Genre: Action, Drama
Country: USA
US Theatrical Release: July 1, 2015
US Distributor: Paramount Pictures

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San Andreas

29/5/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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It takes an earthquake—a really big earthquake—to mend the wounds of a suburban American family. Such is the trajectory of San Andreas, director Brad Payton’s jump into the summer movie big league after Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010), as it rambles along the trail of a disaster zone from the Hoover Dam to Los Angeles to San Francisco. Cause and effect may be on the minds of scientists at Cal Tech honing their abilities to read early warning signs of earthquakes (an inane subplot of San Andreas), but it is also on the mind of Ray (Dwayne Johnson), a helicopter pilot for the L.A Fire Department, in regards to his marriage that has withered after the accidental death of their younger daughter. Fate intervenes, in the form of the largest recorded seismic tremor in history, taking us on an absurd CGI-laden adventure through maudlin family drama and simplistic domino-effect urban destruction, requiring leaps of faith that no amount of special effects can render possible.
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Area Theaters

Director: Brad Peyton
Producer: Beau Flynn
Writers: Carlton Cuse, Andre Fabrizio, Jeremy Passmore
Cinematographer: Steve Yedlin
Editor: Bob Ducsay
Music: Andrew Lockington
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, Paul Giamatti, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Will Yun Lee, Kylie Minogue, Colton Haynes, Todd Williams, Matt Gerald, Alec Utgoff

Runtime: 122m.
Genre: Action, Drama
Countries: USA
US Theatrical Release: May 29, 2015
US Distributor: Warner Bros.

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Mad Max: Fury Road

15/5/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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Cinematic dystopia didn’t begin with Mad Max, but its brand of gritty, kill-or-be-killed, punk rock misanthropy has left a massive imprint that still resonates in movies, television and video games. Mad Max’s first incarnation in 1979 was little more than a shrewd and infectiously alluring Ozploitation film outfitted to the nines with explosions and car chases. The franchise matured with two successive sequels, The Road Warrior (1981) and Beyond Thunderdome (1985)—the latter a full-blown spread of mass appeal with a hit song and Ewok-like charm appropriate for the PG-13 crowd. Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth iteration, arrives in a vacuum of a 30 year gestation and plays its wild card potential with the subtlety of pulsing testosterone and the style of a supercharged Ford Falcon, bathing you in gasoline explosions while holding your face to ground traveling at mach speed. Director George Miller tucks Babe and Happy Feet away for the time being and not so much returns to the franchise as provides an eruption of action bravado under the Mad Max banner in the form of operatic artistic catharsis. Fury Road gleefully survives on souped up adrenaline, even if everything around it—including character, plot, soundtrack, and limp attempts at melodrama and context—feels like a prefab afterthought.
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Area Theaters

Director: George Miller
Producers: George Miller, Doug Mitchell, P.J. Voeten
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Cinematographer: John Seale
Editors: Jason Ballantine, Margaret Sixel
Music: Junkie XL
Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter, Angus Sampson, Megan Gale, Melissa Jaffer

Runtime: 120m.
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Countries: Australia/USA
US Theatrical Release: May 15, 2015
US Distributor: Warner Bros.

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Tangerines

1/5/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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Zaza Urushadze’s Tangerines—the first Estonian movie to be nominated for an Oscar—is an understated work of dichotomies, embracing both human levity and social malaise found in the face of war. Urushadze’s fourth feature unfurls a simple story in a common three act structure while nimbly alluding to current and past political complexities confronting individuals in our violent global village. Set in 1992, Tangerines focuses on two Estonians remaining in the hinterlands of the Abkhazia-Georgian region on the precipice of war—a simmering ethnic conflict that escalated after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The story might concentrate on isolated personalities in a specific moment in time, but it does not exist in a vacuum. Abkhazia is still a disputed region (also subtly highlighted in the Georgian-made, Oscar-shortlisted Corn Island), and the 1992 Russian-backed conflict against Georgia seems like eerie foreshadowing of Russia’s current aggression toward the former republics—a silent yet ubiquitous straw in Tangerines’ wind.
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Edina Cinema

Director: Zaza Urushadze
Producer: Ivo Felt
Writer: Zaza Urushadze
Cinematographer: Rein Kotov
Editor: Alexander Kuranov
Music: Niaz Diasamidze
Cast: Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nüganen, Giorgi Nakashidze, Misha Meskhi, Raivo Trass

Runtime: 87m.
Genre: Drama/War
Country: Estonia/Georgia
Premiere: October 16, 2013 – Warsaw Film Festival
US Theatrical Release: April 17, 2015
US Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films

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Two Days, One Night

13/2/2015

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by Kathie Smith
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Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are skilled manufacturers of empathy, nuanced in subtle stories around unlikely heroes. Although the Dardennes got their start in documentaries, their advocacy for society’s underserved flourished with their narrative successes—most notably Rosetta (1999), which won the Palme d’Or and Best Actress at Cannes but also had enough real-world gravity to motivate child labor reform in their home country of Belgium. In many ways, Two Days, One Night, the Dardennes’ most recent movie, imagines Rosetta, the seventeen-year-old namesake of their award winning film, fifteen years later, still wanting to believe in the rewards of honest hard work. But instead of recompense for toeing a very hard line, Rosetta, here named Sandra and played by Marion Cotillard, represents an individual crushed, despite her stamina, by a very unfair system rooted in the glories of capitalism.
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Edina Cinema

Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Producers: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Denis Freyd
Writers: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Cinematographer: Alain Marcoen
Editor: Marie-Hélène Dozo
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salée, Batiste Sornin, Pili Groyne, Simon Caudry, Alain Eloy, Myriem Akheddiou, Fabienne Sciascia, Rania Mellouli, Timur Magomedgadzhiev, Christelle Cornil

Runtime: 95m.
Genre: Drama
Country: Belgium/France/Italy
Premiere: May 20, 2014 – Cannes Film Festival
US Theatrical Release: December 24, 2014
US Distributor: IFC Films


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