February 2015
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There is unfortunately very little of the often superb Danish director Susanne Bier in this darkish Hollywoodish comedy. She's so much better when she stays closer to her native themes. The plot is built on an antique and hallowed cliche: northern Europeans migrate to southern Italy to find freedom and to re-awaken love. In this…
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I would have thought that I'd have had in the hopper all the senses, proper and improper, of "'stopper." But I've come a-cropper. The most familiar stopper is, of course, the blocker of liquids, as for example the cork that fits into the top of the wine bottle — or the polished glass stopper that used…
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Black Angel is a good, fast-paced Cornell Woolrich mystery and certainly one of the noiriest of all noirs. It features lots of grimy black-and-white photography of seedy hotels and bars, and a nebbishy weakling who is falsely accused of murder and who is rescued from execution by a last-second phone call to the Governor. It…