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Entries by Marshall Fine from 04/2012

Movie Review: Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope

| Posted 04.02.2012

The key here is the mix of tones Spurlock achieves: a blend of boyish gee-whiz fascination and a winking sense of the absurdity of grown-ups devoting their lives to this sort of fantasy and role-playing.

Movie review: We Have a Pope

| Posted 04.03.2012

Thoughtful but funny in a low-key way, Nanni Moretti's We Have a Pope examines the idea of papal succession through a fictional story that reminds us ...

Movie Review: American Reunion -- No Joke

| Posted 04.04.2012

The stench of desperation permeates this film, a sequel to American Pie, the 1999 gross-out hit, and its many offspring.

Review: The Assault

| Posted 04.05.2012

Like Paul Greengrass' United 93, this film focuses on urgent action in tightly enclosed spaces, which also leads to an occasional lack of clarity when we're not sure what we're seeing.

Interview: Director Nanni Moretti and We Have a Pope

| Posted 04.06.2012

"People have expectations of my films, which I always try not to meet. Many people expected a frontal attack on the Vatican. But I didn't want to do that."

An End to "Found Footage" Films -- Please!

| Posted 04.06.2012

I'm declaring a moratorium on the "found footage" mock documentary. And, while we're at it, how about the same thing for movies shot to look like they're hand-held documentaries, even when they're just fiction films?

Movie Review: The Cabin in the Woods

| Posted 04.09.2012

If you think you've seen The Cabin in the Woods before, well, you're half-right. You've definitely seen movies along the same lines. But I'd also wager that you've never seen anything like it.

Annals of the Overrated: Will Ferrell

| Posted 04.10.2012

My heart sank recently when I heard that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay were going to bring back Ron Burgundy in an Anchorman 2 project.

Movie Review: Lockout

| Posted 04.11.2012

In Lockout, we have a prison-escape film that features an actor in search of literal escape -- from this film.

Movie Review: The Lady

| Posted 04.12.2012

Thanks to a marvelously full-bodied performance by Michelle Yeoh and a complementary one by David Thewlis, The Lady overcomes its own obstacles -- principally ones of pacing -- to present a moving portrait of courage, resilience and conviction.

Movie Review: Unraveled

| Posted 04.16.2012

To the canon of films about the financial collapse of 2008, add Marc Simon's Unraveled, a portrait of one man's hubris, insecurity and appetite for glory, writ large.

Movie Review: The Lucky One

| Posted 04.17.2012

I'm sure there are those who will be shocked that I not only enjoyed a lot of The Lucky One, but that I think Zac Efron's performance is a break-out moment -- the announcement that a teen dream has made the transition to adult dramatic actor.

Actor Guy Pearce Pumps Up for Lockout

| Posted 04.17.2012

Stranded in outer space, stranded in Serbia -- how much different can it be? Not much, says actor Guy Pearce, whose newest film, Lockout, opened Friday.

Movie Review: Darling Companion

| Posted 04.18.2012

Kevin Kline and Diane Keaton play Joseph and Beth Winter, a long-married couple in Denver; he's a self-important spinal surgeon and she is the wife whose needs have always taken a back seat to his.

Movie Review: Fightville

| Posted 04.19.2012

Poirier is an interesting figure -- but his story itself, at least as told in Fightville, isn't all that involving.

Movie Review: Chimpanzee

| Posted 04.19.2012

A film that took more than four years and an extravagant amount of luck to make, Chimpanzee is an exceptional wildlife movie that should hold the interest of viewers from youngest to oldest.

Movie Review: To the Arctic

| Posted 04.20.2012

To the Arctic, like the cable series Frozen Planet, provides a precious historical record. At some point in the future, films like this will provide the only visual record of polar bears, caribou and other Arctic fauna that will eventually disappear.

Movie Review: Think Like a Man

| Posted 04.20.2012

It says something about the state of romantic comedies today that the ideas in a movie like Think Like a Man -- or in books like Steve Harvey's Act Li...

Movie Review: Marley

| Posted 04.20.2012

Marley is a welcome documentary, one that celebrates Bob Marley's spirit, his genius and his influence. If it errs on the side of hagiography, well, at least it gives us glimpses of previously unseen Marley performances.

Kasdan Meets Kline: It's the Kev and Larry Show!

| Posted 04.23.2012

It's a gorgeous spring day in Manhattan, which seems to have both actor Kevin Kline and writer-director Lawrence Kasdan restless.

Open Letter to Jack Nicholson: Happy Birthday - and Thanks!

| Posted 04.24.2012

Jack Nicholson, one of the great screen actors of all time, turned 75 this week and, in honor of that milestone, I wanted to publicly say: thank you.

Movie review: Bernie

| Posted 04.25.2012

Based on a true story about events and people in a small Texas town in the mid-1990s, Bernie is a dark joke with a straight face -- and the surprising deadpan in this movie belongs to Jack Black.

Movie Review: The Five-Year Engagement

| Posted 04.26.2012

The Five-Year Engagement wrings a slightly different change on the old boy-meets-girl formula -- and finds enough big laughs to make the whole thing enjoyable, even if it's never particularly fresh.

Movie Review: Safe

| Posted 04.27.2012

Boaz Yakin's Safe is high-octane silliness, a movie whose individual parts are greater than their sum.

Actor Garret Dillahunt Gets Serious -- Again

| Posted 04.29.2012

Yes, Garret Dillahunt says, things do come full-circle. Sitting in the press lounge of the Tribeca Film Festival, where he was talking about one of ...