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chrismonfette's Reviews

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“[The Village], for all its various matters of subject, is as meandering as a woodland stream, though every bit as effective in direction, mood, performance, scares and heart as any cinephile or Shyamalan fan might dare to hope. ”


The films of M. Night Shyamalan are difficult creatures to critique, if only because their sums are so often greater than the value of their individual parts. The Sixth Sense, for all its taught suspense and truly original “twist” ending, kicked off a career as much about expectation as executi...
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“As a documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a meandering, unfocused and largely unbalanced piece of non-fiction filmmaking. However, as one patriot’s passionate, wide-ranging soliloquy to America, the film is a brutally effective prayer for uncensored truth and change. ”


(NOTE: Generally, as a rule, I try to make a pointed effort not to insert myself directly into the reviews that I write here on the site. I’m fortunate enough to publish a column, Cynamatic, that provides my daily dose of narcissistic grandstanding, and having addressed the issue of Fahrenhe...
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“The film is larger in every way than its already sizeable predecessor, yet succeeds at being widely more intimate. Finely scripted and superbly performed, the film never fails to include true moments of character between its lavishly filmed action sequences...”


From the outside-in, there must be a great freedom in the work that Spiderman does, slinging endlessly upward from rooftop-to-rooftop, graceful in that pendulum arc – soaring, like any great thing unbound by gravity, through the streets of some towering metropolis, to the aid of those very much un...
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“Overall, Azkaban succeeds in being both suspenseful and cheerful, dark yet wonderfully bright – a delightful film – the best book in the series and, for the moment, the best film in the lot.”


There’s a moment in the first Harry Potter novel where Harry, through the foggy surface of a magical mirror, first comes into contact with the faces of his long-dead parents. It’s an unexpected moment, and touching, full of sincerity and loss, and constitutes the placement of a great burden upon...
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The Feature:
The concept of Neverland is a classic idea - a place where youth is never quite misspent, simply because it can never, for every minute or millennium that passes, run out. It's a classic tale of the soul's stubbornness to grow old, to wither and age and one day d...
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“While the film may be far from perfect, Secret Window offers a well-acted and tautly-directed thriller of substantial depth and character.”


Adaptation is a difficult process. It’s a translation, of sorts – a reinterpretation of idea into form – and in film is almost always a losing prospect. There are simply too many minds, too many eyes, spying for a place in the ultimate vision, and as a single idea passes from writer, to scre...
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“Watching The Dreamers is like taking a nap with your eyes open, but the dream, while it lasts, has value enough to remember. ”


The experience of being a critic is an interesting thing, oftentimes exciting and oftentimes odd, but never without its lessons. As a twenty-something critic of this modern cinematic generation, watching Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers leaves me feeling shamefully dated. Being seated in the...
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The Feature:
King Lear on ice. Such is The Sea. A bleak and atmospheric family drama set against the backdrop of a modernizing Iceland, The Sea, at its heart, is a small story about a big family. Here, filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur tells the tale of Thordur, the patriarch o...
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