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Best of Providence 2009
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Reviews

090508_angels_lits

Heaven and Hell

Angels & Demons has it all
Tom Hanks is back as Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon, but the filmmakers have ditched the long hair and allowed Hanks to look like an early-fiftysomething (which he is) instead of The Da Vinci Code 's 40ish hipster wanna-be.
By: JEFFREY GANTZ  |  May 15, 2009

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Review: Star Trek

Going boldly and well
The original Star Trek , after all, didn't even complete its five-year mission. Four spinoff TV series, 10 theatrical releases, and millions of dollars of merchandise later, the Enterprise goes back into space with the original cast, if not the original actors. Live long and prosper indeed.
By: JEFFREY GANTZ  |  May 11, 2009

Charlie List

Life lessons

Coming of age in Education of Charlie Banks
There are schoolyard bullies and there are schoolyard bullies. Likewise, some stories about them rise above the predictable. The title character of The Education of Charlie Banks  isn't even given a noogie — confrontation is not his route to coming of age.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  May 06, 2009

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Review: Next Day Air

It's all fun and games until everyone's shoving guns in each other's faces. And then it isn't much fun at all.
Wood Harris, so supremely menacing as Avon Barksdale in The Wire , plays Guch, a hood so boneheaded, he robs a bank but forget to take the money.
By: DAVID WILDMAN  |  May 06, 2009

090501_xmen_list

Not so great X-pectations

Wolverine 's shaggy-dog backstory
It doesn't bode well when one of a movie's supervillains has a Roman numeral for a name.
By: PETER KEOUGH  |  May 07, 2009

090501_tyson_LIts

Ring master

Toback's Tyson tames two egos
At its best, Tyson becomes its subject's psychotherapist, allowing him to disgorge with no judgment and little restraint his memories, fantasies, impulses, and fears.
By: PETER KEOUGH  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: Pedro

An inspiring life reduced to sound bites, clichés, and hugs
There's no other reason to see the film.
By: PETER KEOUGH  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: Fighting

He’s a muscle-bound clod and she’s a vapid cliché
Call this a guide to recognizing your sophomore slump. Dito Montiel won the Directing Award at Sundance with his autobiographical 2006 debut, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints , but that film had Robert Downey Jr. and Chazz Palminteri.
By: DAVID WILDMAN  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

 McConaughey is less miser than sex-addicted shithead
Jon Lucas and Scott Moore must have a pathological hatred of the winter holidays.
By: BRETT MICHEL  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: I Can't Think Straight

Pastel-colored romance
You'd think being a gay Muslim in London would involve a lot of stress, but in Shamim Sarif's blithe, pastel-colored romance, everyone is beautiful and rich, so it's just another diversion.
By: PETER KEOUGH  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: Is Anybody There?

Bored boy befriends down-and-out magician
This seems to be the year for nostalgia films. Here we have relative newcomer John Crowley directing an English working-class yarn from Peter Harness's autobiographical script.
By: PEG ALOI  |  April 29, 2009

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Review: Obsessed

Makes Fatal Attraction look like a masterpiece
As a troubled husband and wife, Idris Elba and Beyoncé Knowles don't lack for chemistry and credibility. You can't say as much for the film in which they play these roles.
By: TOM MEEK  |  April 29, 2009

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Review: Ballerina

A baby-steps ballet documentary
The subject of Bertrand Normand's 2006 French-television documentary is actually five ballerinas from the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg
By: JEFFREY GANTZ  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: Battle for Terra

A computer-animated sci-fi epic in 3D
Say you want to produce an independent computer-animated sci-fi epic but you don't have the deep pockets of Pixar or DreamWorks — what to do? If you're director Aristomenis Tsirbas, you simplify.
By: BRETT MICHEL  |  April 28, 2009

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Review: Crank: High Voltage

A heartless thrill ride
Chinese triads. Corey Haim. Porn actors on strike. REO Speedwagon. Yes, the creators of this nearly unwatchable sequel will use anything to achieve their twisted goal: to shock ADHD teenagers.
By: CHRIS WANGLER  |  April 21, 2009

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Review: The Informers

L.A. stories
Were the '80s an era of comic nostalgia, as in Adventureland , or one of inane nihilism, as in Gregor Jordan's adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel?
By: PETER KEOUGH  |  April 21, 2009

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Review: The Soloist

Troubled reporter meets homeless musical genius
A small, real-life drama about a homeless musical genius set in the urban present.
By: TOM MEEK  |  April 21, 2009

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Review: Hannah Montana: The Movie

Never gets too heavy
Okay, I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for Miley Cyrus and her Hannah Montana TV persona.
By: TOM MEEK  |  April 15, 2009

090317_17_list

Review: 17 Again

The Efron-to-Perry link is hard to swallow
Burr Steers, who showed promise with Igby Goes Down , appears to be slumming it for the paycheck.
By: TOM MEEK  |  April 15, 2009

090410_observe-list

Review: Observe and Report

Seth Rogen calls security
Jody Hill's ambiguous and unsettling film is a comedy about law enforcement in much the same way that Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy is a comedy about comedy.
By: PETER KEOUGH  |  April 08, 2009
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