Category: Review
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The Calculated Cruelty of ‘Salaam Cinema’
Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s not-quite-documentary is revelatory — and gets its hands a little dirty in the process.
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Next Big Things
Gregory La Cava’s ‘Stage Door’ is often at once hysterically funny and brutally pragmatic about the personal toll a career in entertainment can take.
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Disobedience
John Sayles’ groundbreaking ‘Lianna’ was a landmark — albeit a criminally underseen one — for lesbian representation in cinema.
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Trouble in Paradise
On the screwball-comedy perfection of 1937’s ‘The Awful Truth.’
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‘Shoot the Moon’: An Underrated Reminder of Diane Keaton’s Generational Genius
Alan Parker’s 1982 divorce drama is among the genre’s most emotionally evocative works.
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The Heart of the Matter
Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’ more than sidesteps divorce-movie expectations.
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‘Heartburn’ Sticks Too Close to the Surface
Meryl Streep is lovable as Nora Ephron’s stand-in in the 1986 adaptation of the latter’s same-named novel, but you can’t help but want it to mine its divorce plot more thoroughly.
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‘Waiting to Exhale’ is Easy to Love
The 1995 dramedy is satisfyingly pessimistic about love and relationships and dead serious about the power of friendship.
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Next Lifetime
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’ is a deceptively serene meditation on mortality.
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Final Hours
Michael Roemer’s ‘Dying’ is breathtakingly honest about the emotional realities of terminal illness.
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‘Southern Comfort’ Compassionately Captures an Extraordinary Life
On Kate Davis’ 2001 documentary.
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Mind Games
Mohammad Reza Aslani’s gorgeously shot melodrama ‘Chess of the Wind’ is a revelation that was very nearly lost forever.
Peterson Reviews 