Thursday, December 6,2012
‘The Sessions’ is sweetly sexual
By Ryan Syrek
America’s Puritanical origins mean that “sweetly sexual” may sound oxymoronic, but that phrase absolutely defines The Sessions, the softest and kindest movie to ever feature a star of Mad About You buck nekkid.
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Thursday, December 6,2012
‘Smashed’ updates our alcoholic narrative
By Ryan Syrek
The ubiquitous hyperbolic after-school-special type of dramatization of the perils of alcoholism has lost its teeth; it no longer delivers a social bite so much as it gets drool everywhere.
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Wednesday, November 21,2012
In the end, ‘Lincoln’ is more about an act than a man
By Ryan Syrek
A humble suggestion: Force the chittering, self-serving partisans in Washington who increasingly prefer filibusters over floor votes to watch Lincoln. Director Steven Spielberg’s latest provides a character sketch, not of its titular president, but of America’s political process.
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Thursday, November 15,2012
‘Man with the Iron Fists’ is uneven fun%u2028
By Ryan Syrek
To walk in to The Man with the Iron Fists by choice is to give up your right to bitch about story and character.
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Thursday, November 8,2012
‘Wreck-It Ralph’ is sticky sweet
By Ryan Syrek
For a generation weaned on more Mario than Mother Goose, Wreck-It Ralph has been a long time coming.
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Thursday, November 1,2012
‘Detropia’ stylishly shows Detroit’s demise
By Ryan Syrek
At its worst, cinema verite is aimless pretense masquerading as artistic intent. At its best, it is Detropia, a documentary that adds soul to statistics, going inside the implosion of a once-proud city using a sprawling, haunting approach.
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Thursday, November 1,2012
‘Cloud Atlas’ sports foggy brilliance
By Ryan Syrek
To steal from Mother Goose (don’t worry, she’s dead): When Cloud Atlas is good, it’s very, very good; when it’s bad, Hugo Weaving is doing a drag impression of Nurse Ratched.
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Thursday, October 25,2012
Just one of ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’
By Ryan Syrek
Reconciling the public’s fascination with Emma Watson’s blossoming sexuality with realizing that the first time she was on screen she was 11 years old is really difficult.
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Thursday, October 25,2012
‘Seven Psychopaths’ is worth the risk
By Ryan Syrek
Guess what? You’re so not ready for Seven Psychopaths.
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Thursday, October 18,2012
‘Argo’ proves Ben is the real deal
By Ryan Syrek
It’s easy to thrill people when they don’t know what’s coming. OK, maybe not easy — paging Mr. Shyamalan — but certainly less difficult than whipping up tension in a film based on a decades-old actual incident, the resolution of which is but a Google search away.