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Edson Oda’s debut feature, Nine Days, is a pure allegory; the film works as an extended philosophical rumination but fails as a story. Although interesting in many aspects, Nine Days is as often frustrating as it is compelling, and the denou...

What's the point? If I wanted to spend 12 minutes watching someone pushing a cart around a grocery store, I'd go to the local A&P, not sit in a movie theater. At least then I could get the week's shopping done. Nine Lives is a failed experiment...

It's always a tricky proposition to make a motion picture based on recent history -- and the more public the episode, the more difficult it is for the film maker to balance drama with accuracy. This is especially true when that film maker is Olive...

Expecting normalcy from a Coen Brothers production is a pointless endeavor, but anticipating brilliance isn't outlandish. Their latest feature, which has about zero box office potential, provides plenty of the latter and a little of the former. It�...

It's increasingly unusual that a thriller can claim to maintain its intensity for the entirety of its running length. No Escape is masterful at keeping the stakes high without confounding our so-called "suspension of disbelief." Unlike ...

No Hard Feelings is an odd movie in that films of this sort have fallen out of vogue in the 21st century and are rarely accorded any sort of theatrical release. (The box office results will determine whether the decision to reject a direct-to-stre...

No Reservations is an adequate adaptation of Sandra Nettelbeck's 2001 German feature, Mostly Martha. While not as emotionally resonant as its inspiration and tending a little more toward melodrama, No Reservations is nevertheless a uplifting tale ...

Romantic comedies are a little like junk food: they're not healthy or sophisticated but, when made right, there's something addictive about their tasty familiarity. Going in, you know what you're going to get. There are no surprises, nasty or other...

Watching No Sudden Move, the thought came to me that, if I didn’t know the director beforehand, I might guess Steven Soderbergh or the Coen Brothers. It’s the kind of production that only those filmmakers (or their proteges) would make, using...

In all the years I have watched James Bond movies, I will confess to rarely having been shocked by a narrative development or twist. Prior to No Time to Die, there was one exception: the conclusion of OnHer Majesty’s Secret Service, when Bond...