| Critic |
Review |
Quote |
Analysis |
This Week's Verdict |
Armond White,
New York Press |
The Science of Sleep |
"Michel Gondry is always trying to make his own pop song, yet film is his medium of choice...Recalling 'La Lettre,' the quirky, melancholy short about unrequited love available on Gondry's Director's Label DVD, The Science of Sleep articulates common young adult emotional dilemmas... For Gondry the impulse is so intense that Stephane feels isolated, even though everyone around him (including his oddball colleagues toiling in the basement of a bank) knows some version of the same plaint. Despite this dark realization, The Science of Sleep is fingerpaint- and construction paper-bright. It has a pop song's adolescent, pre-verbal, amorous drive." |
See what happens when Armond takes a break from waging cultural jihad against his favorite directorial whipping boys? This is his best review in months — and, aside from one brief tired swipe at A Scanner Darkly — his least confrontational. Can it last? |
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Stephanie Zacharek,
Salon.com
|
All the King's Men |
"All the King's Men feels like a ponderous tract about idealism and politics, one that someone forgot to finish. It toddles around on its noble, self-evident truths as if they were clown stilts, but it always manages to remain safely far above the masses — we never quite know what Willie Stark does stand for, aside from the fact that we're repeatedly told he's a man of the people... Zaillian and Penn seem to be afraid of making him too unlikable. Perhaps they were nervous that audiences wouldn't get the point. If that's the case, they're like the most cynical of politicians: How can you possibly serve the public if you have no faith in it?" |
Ouch. Months of shooting, countless test screenings, two years of post-production, and still somebody's saying the movie feels unfinished. That's gotta hurt. |
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A.O. Scott
New York Times |
All the King's Men |
"Whatever its flaws, [Robert Penn] Warren's book, a meaty stew of lurid Southern-gothic pulp and high-minded literariness, seems to provide the recipe for a grand, melodramatic prestige picture...All the King's Men has it all. The problem may be that it has too much. Mr. Zaillian and his editor, Wayne Wahrman, having labored mightily to strain and reduce Warren's messy gumbo, serve up a platter heaped with starchy, indigestible lumps...Willie [Stark] is the kind of populist leader who grows larger in public, where he feeds on the anger and adoration of the people...Mr. Penn is in some ways too fine an actor to play a country ham like Willie Stark." |
Um, is anyone else getting hungry reading this review? |
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Jessica Reaves,
Chicago Tribune |
Jackass: Number Two |
"What is there to say, after all, about a 95-minute foray into feces, intestinal gas, horse semen and a beer funnel inserted into a body cavity that's quite obviously not someone's mouth?...What I can report about Johnny Knoxville's sophomore outing with the Jackass crew: All but one cast member returned, and you'll spend the entire film wondering why...During the closing credits, one cast member/hapless stuntman turns to the camera and pleads, 'Please, God, don't let there be a Jackass Three.' I couldn't have said it better myself." |
Y'know, as much as we might get a kick out of these Jackass flicks, we feel for poor Ms. Reaves, who wound up with several hours of nausea after being tasked with this thankless review. In a way, her review points out a heretofore unexploited connection between the masochistic shenanigans of Johnny Knoxville's crew and the abuse endured by the critics who have to sit through these things. |
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Dana Stevens,
Slate
|
The Last Kiss |
"How you feel about that ending may depend on how much slack you're willing to cut for artistic, self-absorbed boys with elaborate dream worlds-boys, perhaps, like Michel Gondry. To me, the movie feels like a small but ingeniously crafted gift, like the stuffed horse Stéphane outfits with a tiny motor for his beloved's pleasure. But whatever your take on the movie's final scene, you can't help but root for Bernal and Gainsbourg to get together. Physically, they're cut from the same cloth: androgynous and coltish, with graceful hands and dark, velvety eyes-and their onscreen connection gives off real warmth instead of the usual movie-star fireworks. It's beyond me why Gainsbourg, the daughter of the great French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, hasn't yet become a French export on the level of Juliette Binoche...If she were my neighbor, I'd build a robotic felt pony for her, too." |
When she first mentioned the "stuffed horse [outfitted] with a tiny motor for his beloved's pleasure," we thought we were the only ones whose minds went into the gutter. Now we're not so sure. |
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