Theater/Film Reviews
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Sarah’s Key
Despite its motto of “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” motto, French attitude toward Jews in the 19th and much of the 20th century put them strictly in the back of the bus. The Dreyfus Affair, in the 1890s, was a low spot, but some of the World War II collaborations with the Nazis might have been even
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Oregon Shakespeare Festival
ASHLAND, Ore. — The matinee was over and we were sitting in Lithia Park, just down the hill from the theaters that house the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. On the field in front of us, a few guys tossed a frisbee, another practiced his juggling, one kicked around a hackey-sack. We were talking about the "Julius
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Snow Flower and the Magic Fan
The sheer photographic beauty of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" is absolutely mind-boggling. Wayne Wang's superlative, dramatic tale of two women bound by "laotong," opens today and is a feast for the lover of visual artistry. Every shot is perfectly focused, perfectly lighted, and the beauty seems natural. Richard Wong is the cinematographer, Dierdre
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 2
First, you put on your cute, round, black-rimmed glasses, just like the ones Harry Potter wears. Then you enter the theater to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 2," which opens today. And then you experience excruciating boredom for more than two hours as the young wizard is blurred by a 3-D process that
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Le Quattro Volte
Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino has created a small miracle in "Le Quattro Volte," which translates to "the four times," which translates again to "the four seasons." It's a film without a word of dialogue, so its Italian heritage will pose no language problems. It's a film that spends a year with a goatherd from Calabria,
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A Better Life
Despite all the palaver out there about living in the land of opportunity, it's hard to imagine living with the panic that is the constant companion to Carlos Galindo. He's a Los Angeles day worker. Even worse, he's an illegal immigrant with a teenage son, Luis, who was born in Los Angeles. If Carlos is
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American: The Billl Hicks Story
"American: The Bill Hicks Story," opens here today, offering an opportunity to watch a comic channel Lenny Bruce, who did it all and did it better more than a half-century earlier. There's nothing wrong in watching another person follow a similar path to too-early death, but reading reviews of the documentary on Hicks makes me
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City of Life and Death
"City of Life and Death," looks at the 1937 Rape of Nanking with a direct, unblinking eye, making it one of the most frightening, most stomach-twisting movies I've ever seen. Shot in black and white, which only emphasizes everything, it's mesmerizing in its power, even as it makes one's skin crawl watching man's inhumanity to
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Page One: Inside the New York Times
When a corporation commissions a movie about itself, you know there are going to be problems. It will be self-serving, self-conscious and a good old-fashioned puff piece. Mostly, however, movies like this are shown to boards of directors, focus groups, the employees, perhaps at an anniversary dinner or a retirement or family function of some
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Trollhunter
Remember “The Blair Witch Project,” that utterly inane mock documentary in which a bunch of kids supposedly filmed their own adventure in some woods where they went camping and met an other-worldly villain bent on killing them? Well, “Trollhunter,” opening today, repeats the nonsense, but in Norwegian, written and directed by Andre Ovredal. Once again,