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BRETT MICHEL

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Review: Mademoiselle Chambon

Stéphane Brizé’s heartbreaking waltz
Hungarian violinist and composer Franz von Vecsey’s Valse triste strikes a delicate chord in Stéphane Brizé’s subtle and exquisitely acted adaptation of Eric Holder’s novel.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 16, 2010

Review: Machete

Less is indeed more
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the case of Machete , the Mexploitation picture directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis, it was the trailer.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 08, 2010

Review: Going the Distance

Long, Barrymore are out of gas
For a documentary, Nanette Burstein's American Teen felt awfully scripted. But it had a pulse, and characters you could invest in.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 03, 2010

Review: Centurion

Veni, vidi, viscera: The Roman Empire gets Pict apart
Those Romans in the second century sure were a surly bunch. And what pottymouths!

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 28, 2010

Review: Mao's Last Dancer

The red ballet-shoe diaries
Bruce Beresford may here be closer to the manipulative Driving Miss Daisy (1989) than to his earlier masterpieces of emotional restraint, Breaker Morant (1980) and Tender Mercies (1983) — but he gets good performances from his cast.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 18, 2010

Review: The Extra Man

Adaptation of Jonathan Ames' novel may leave you bored to death
Dandy dreamer Louis Ives (Paul Dano) fancies himself a hero in the F. Scott Fitzgerald mold. He's Nick Carraway to this film's Gatsby, Henry Harrison (a fine Kevin Kline), who proclaims himself "to the right of the pope" in matters of sex.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 11, 2010

Naked truth

George Kuchar exposed at the HFA
The George Kuchar renaissance that began with the release of Jennifer M. Kroot's affectionate documentary detailing "the 8mm Mozarts," George and his twin brother Mike, builds to a climax this weekend when the Harvard Film Archive welcomes George.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 17, 2010

Review: The Concert

Enjoy laughing uproariously at cartoonish Russian stereotypes?
Has Radu Mihaileanu made the film for you!

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 04, 2010

Review: Agora

Alejandro Amenábar: Man of Science
We're but tiny specks in the cosmos, a point Alejandro Amenábar drives home via nigh-omnipresent powers-of-10 shots.

By: BRETT MICHEL | July 20, 2010

Review: Predators

Can't get the Governator? Cast a real actor!
Eight archetypical soldiers and killers awaken, disoriented, falling through the sky, slow-opening parachutes strapped to their backs.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 17, 2010

Review: The Last Airbender

Yep, it's bad.
If the 11th-hour addition of 3-D to M. Night Shyamalan's odious live-action adaptation of Nickelodeon's beloved anime -influenced cartoon series doesn't make your head hurt, the excess of narration and intertitles surely will.

By: BRETT MICHEL | July 06, 2010

Review: Waking Sleeping Beauty

Disney-produced documentary on Disney criticizes ex-Disney employees
"It was the spring of 1994, and we were just finishing The Lion King , which would go on to earn great reviews and about three-quarters of a billion dollars at the box office," begins Don Hahn, that film's producer, in the fascinating documentary he directed and narrates.

By: BRETT MICHEL | July 06, 2010

Review: Love Ranch

"There's no business like ho business!"'
A worthwhile tale might lurk somewhere in Taylor Hackford's latest, but this flaccid look at the early days of Reno's legalized bordello business takes a fictionalized approach to history rather than the more fact-based strategy that enriched Hackford's Ray .

By: BRETT MICHEL | June 30, 2010

Review: Knight and Day

Cruise's creepiness only adds to the role
With a mischievous grin, Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) gazes into the distrusting eyes of June Havens (Cameron Diaz), who’s spent the last 18 hours drugged unconscious, and explains why she’s not wearing her clothes.

By: BRETT MICHEL | June 24, 2010

Review: Jonah Hex

Disfigured antihero shacks up with a prostitute
Think Will Smith’s Wild Wild West killed the Western?

By: BRETT MICHEL | June 24, 2010

Review: The Karate Kid (2010)

Shouldn't it be "The Kung Fu Kid"?
What happens when Will Smith wants a franchise for his boy.

By: BRETT MICHEL | June 11, 2010

Game Changer

After decades of lackluster releases, the video-game-turned-film genre may have finally found its royalty
For the worse part of two decades, Hollywood has been trying to discover the formula for successfully adapting video games to the big screen.

By: BRETT MICHEL | June 04, 2010

Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Acrobatic loner thrust into the arms of a princess
This, the most artistically successful video game-to-screen translation yet (which isn’t saying much), could have used more of its own magical Sands of Time, which endow the possessor with time-rewinding, mistake-correcting powers.