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alicia potter
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A puzzler of a cancer drama
A baby with a brain tumor is no laughing matter.
Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody's first re-teaming since Juno
A baby, a high school, and esoteric pop culture references once again figure prominently — albeit less glibly — in director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody's first re-teaming since Juno.
Not much of a splash
Winter the dolphin gamely plays herself in this loose re-telling of her fight for survival after a crab trap mangles her tail.
Rampant anthropomorphizing
To their credit, directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey don't cut away from a downed gazelle or a hippo mid evisceration.
Kristin Scott Thomas stays cool
Kristin Scott Thomas doffs her native language, a recent tendency toward shrewishness, and a couple of sundresses to play an elegant South-of-France housewife hot for an ex-con builder.
Weaver, Curtis are solid enough (also Betty White is in this movie).
In this wildly uneven comedy from Andy Flickman, sleek PR exec Marni (Kristen Bell) has finally buried her geeky high-school history.
Really grows on you
As a latecomer to the growing crop of food-industry exposés, Ana Sofia Joanes's even-handed documentary on the evils of factory farming doesn't live up to its title. Yet despite tilling familiar ground, its argument for sustainable alternatives intrigues.
Exposes the panic beneath all that pancake
Opening with capillaried close-ups of its subject’s bare face, Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg’s competent “year-in-the-life” documentary hints at an unmasking.
Bad dog!
Add director Tom Dey's dreadful live-action adaptation of the long-running comic strip to the pantheon of dog flicks that'll make you cry — for all the wrong reasons.
Awwww
Director Thomas Balmès’s spare, occasionally stirring documentary toddles to Namibia, Mongolia, the US, and Japan to capture a year in the life of four infants. The San Francisco family comes off at once as a gross cliché of Western privilege, complete with roof-deck Jacuzzi and baby yoga.
A violent, coarse, and mirthless eco-dud
Snicker all you want at the unfortunate title of director Roger Kumble’s horrible family film, for that’s the only thing funny about it.
... flunks
First-time documentarian and TV journalist Bob Bowdon’s broad primer on what’s rotting American education runs like a 90-minute 20/20 segment.
It's laughing all the way to the sperm bank
As a pregnant single woman, Jennifer Lopez glows spectacularly. Director Alan Poul’s bland baby comedy, however, appears to have been a light labor.
Leave It to Beaver , according to Eddie Haskell
Middle-school antihero Greg Heffley may depict himself as a comic illustration in Jeff Kinney’s bestselling kids’ books, but director Thor Freudenthal turns him into an outright caricature.
Art school meets a whole lot of crazy
Henri Matisse once declared the Barnes Foundation "the only sane place to see art in America."
Dante's Inferno comes to Sin City
Actually, the stakes never feel high in first-time writer/director Hue Rhodes's listless drama about a reformed gambling addict (Steve Buscemi) still itching for scratch tickets.
Might be time to hang 'em up
Director Walt Becker re-teams with his Road Hogs star and apparent muse John Travolta for another execrable entry in the aging boomer buddy “comedy” genre.
Bio-pic doesn't quite wear well enough
Based on the book by Edmonde Charles-Roux, Anne Fontaine's soaper of a bio-pic traces the fashion icon's life before the perfume and the bouclé suits.
Animated fare will leave kids unsatisfied
This bizarre animated adaptation of Judi Barrett's cult-classic children's book by Phil Lord and Chris Miller ladles up much to chew on yet little that's appetizing.
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