Mike D'Angelo
Story Archive
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A&E
'The King’s Speech' has all the Oscar-bait elements
Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010 If there’s one thing Hollywood loves more than an actor playing royalty, it’s an actor depicting a disability.
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A&E
'I Love You Phillip Morris' combines farce and romance
Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010 Ewan McGregor plays the titular character in I Love You Phillip Morris, opposite Jim Carey (playing real-life con artist Steven Jay Russell) as his homosexual lover.
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Film
'How Do You Know' is rough but lively
Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010 For all its rough patches, the film boasts the one element sorely missing from most Hollywood rom-coms: a pulse.
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Film
'127 Hours' is riveting, gruesome and fascinating
Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2010 By golly, it kind of works!
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Film
'Fair Game' makes middling drama from real-life headlines
Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 Not every big scandal should be a movie, people.
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A&E
‘Morning Glory’ is affable fluff
Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010 Morning Glory tales the tale behind the people delivering your news. But does the movie itself deliver?
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Film
'Inside Job' is a documentary for the uninformed
Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010 Restating the obvious about the evils of Wall Street.
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Film
Pat Tillman's story is fascinating, the movie is not
Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 Tillman himself remains fascinating; the story of his tragic death and its fairly brief cover-up, much less so.
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Film
'Stone,' starring De Niro, Norton and Jovovich, is unusually bracing
Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010 Not that there’s some big twist or anything—you just wouldn’t expect this kind of high-concept, star-driven American film to be so relentlessly interior.
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Film
Education doc 'Waiting for Superman' fuels outrage
Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010 “Superman” successfully jerks your tears and fuels your outrage, but it’s more a recruiting tool than a movie.
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Film
'Kind of' isn’t good enough: The halfhearted 'Funny Story' feels sorta stale
Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010 Despite its capable cast, the film has little more to offer than stale platitudes and canned one-liners.
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Film
Mysterious documentary 'Catfish' is a complex surprise
Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010 You’re better off knowing as little as possible in advance.
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Film
The new 'Wall Street' is preachy and cartoonish
Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010 As opportunistic, decades-later sequels go, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps makes a bit more sense than most.
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Film
'Lebanon' is no 'Apocalypse Now'
Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010 Confined almost entirely to the interior of a single tank, Lebanon is Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s fictionalized account of his harrowing experiences in the 1982 Lebanon War.
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Film
'I’m Still Here' may be a joke, but that doesn’t make it funny
Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010 Joaquin Phoenix "documentary" is more fun to hear about than to actually experience.
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Film
Crime drama 'Animal Kingdom' can’t quite put its tension to full use
Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010 David Michôd’s promising but scattershot feature debut Animal Kingdom thrusts a wary young rabbit into a den of jackals and watches to see if he'll make it out alive.
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Film
'Machete' was better as a mock trailer
Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 This ostensible homage to ’70s sleaze feel more like a late-night comedy sketch.
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Film
'Get Low' is an affecting showcase for Robert Duvall
Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010 Get Low won’t likely be Duvall’s final film, but it functions nonetheless as a sort of crusty valediction.
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Film
'The Expendables' is overstuffed and empty
Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010 Give it up, guys. Your '80s action hero days are over.
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Film
Hoax or not, Banksy’s 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' is brilliant
Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010 The film serves as a bitterly hilarious illustration of the way radical and subversive concepts get appropriated by the talentless and watered down for mass consumption
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Film
"Winter's Bone" is the best film of the year
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 At first glance, Winter’s Bone, looks like more of the same. Against all odds, however, this turns out to be the most electrifying movie of the year.
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Entertainment
"Love Ranch" film makes hookers seem dull
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 You might imagine a movie about legalized prostitution would at least hold your attention. But there’s a reason director Taylor Hackford (Ray) has the word “hack” in his surname.
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Entertainment
Real, believably flawed people populate "The Kids Are All Right"
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 Every character in this Sundance hit, regardless of sexual orientation, proves to be believably, entertainingly flawed
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Film
On the fence: "Cyrus" can’t commit to indie or mainstream
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 This could be either a broad mainstream comedy or a subtle indie character study. As executed by the Duplass brothers, it’s essentially both at once.
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Film
Harry Brown
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Michael Caine is provided with his finest showcase in years, affording him multiple opportunities to wrap that silky-steel voice around barely veiled threats and mock-sorrowful farewells.
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Film
Solitary Man
Wednesday, June 23, 2010 Few things in life are more pathetic than the aging privileged male who bumps up against irrefutable evidence of his own mortality and instantly turns into a destructive, carpe-diem a-hole.
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Film
Only a great movie: "Toy Story 3"
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 Toy Story 3 isn’t the instant classic that its predecessors were, and doesn’t achieve the envelope-pushing creative heights of WALL-E’s wordless first act.
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Film
Letter from Cannes
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 Even before it began, the 63rd Festival de Cannes was widely considered a failure.
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Film
Hoodwinked
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Starring Russell Crowe, the latest "Robin Hood" is all fury, no fun.
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Film
We all lose with 'The Losers'
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 It’s a mystery to me why the generic Hollywood action movie hasn’t yet followed the example of the generic porn flick.
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Film
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 Exposed skin, Eastern mysticism and an angry feminist tract? All of the above.
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Film
Date Night
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Looking to spice up their dull marriage, Phil and Claire Foster depart boring old New Jersey for a night on the town in Manhattan, only to get way more excitement than they bargained for.
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Film
A Prophet
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 It’s so rare these days to see a movie demonstrate simple, quiet proficiency that critics can sometimes respond to that quality with a little too much gratitude.
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Film
Not a nice guy
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Greenberg’s unlikable protagonist overwhelms its insights.
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Film
No end in sight
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Green Zone tediously rehashes critiques of the war in Iraq
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Film
The Last Station
Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 A virtually un-buzzed film gets two Oscar nods, and for good reason.
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Film
Martin Scorsese's extraordinary fever dream
Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 The Departed may be the better movie overall, but Shutter Island, prioritizing mood and imagery over everything else, makes for superior cinema.
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Reviews
A familiar tune
Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 Jeff Bridges shows off in the predictable but entertaining Crazy Heart
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Film
Edge of Darkness
Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 It feel a bit like Ransom, except that in this case Mel Gibson's child is already dead, so he’s even meaner and more implacable.
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Film
"Broken Embraces"
Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010 This is yet another tiresomely reflexive film about filmmaking, moving back and forth between present-day Madrid, where a blind writer-director wrestles with footage of a movie he shot.
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Film
Peter Jackson takes the wrong approach with "The Lovely Bones"
Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010 The movie spends an inordinate amount of time with Susie in her personal heaven, which usually resembles the preposterously idyllic landscapes that pharmaceutical ads employ to distract you.
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Reviews
Lighter than air
Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 The glib Up in the Air is entertaining but insignificant.
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Reviews
Me and Orson Welles
Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 Presented with a movie called Me and Orson Welles, one can’t help but immediately wonder who “me” might be.
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Film
Invictus
Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009 Clint Eastwood's film does almost nothing but congratulate itself for two solid hours.
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Reviews
O Brothers, where art thou?
Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 You’ll probably feel like you’ve seen this remake before, even if you haven’t.
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Film
A pretty fantastic Fox
Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 Wes Anderson makes a very Wes Anderson-y animated film.
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Reviews
Precious
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 Poor black teens. Neglect. AIDS. Rape. Down syndrome. Give this film an Oscar already!