*** 1/2Now playing: Belcourt TheatreBy Jason Shawhan
The Total Perspective Vortex was a creation of SciFi genius Douglas Adams. A device capable of letting any organism know exactly how small and insignificant they are in the face of the vast expanses of the universe as we know it, it more often than not annihilated the soul of whomever was exp...
The Lamb family is reeling from the tragic death of steelworker/mother Elizabeth, leaving son Joe and Sheriff's Deputy Jack (Kyle "Coach from Friday Night Lights" Chandler) to figure out a whole new way of life without her. Lillian, Ohio's smalltown charms keep the Deputy occupied, but never with anything too terribly serious. Yet the tw...
*** 1/2
Weddings make people lose their minds. It's a fascinating phenomenon; as soon as matrimony comes into play, normally even-tempered people turn into the Tasmanian Devil, tearing through floral arrangements, seating charts, thousands of dollars, and eighty-seven different shades of white in order to create one singular day. It...
** 1/2
You might know Thor as the Norse god of thunder from ancient mythologies, or, like most of us, from the long-running Marvel comic bearing his name. Possessed of the magical hammer Mjolnir and great cosmic power, he's fighting to keep balance to the universe. But it wasn't always so, and in the hands of Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Dea...
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Opening with a brief recap/replay of the last moments of 2009's Fast and Furious (the fourth film in Producer Neal Moritz's ongoing saga of racers, thieves, cops, and 'cartists'), Fast Five wastes no time before flipping a bus and sending antihero Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel, doing that thing he always does where he growls his lines a...
** 1/2
Catherine Deneuve remains one of the most beautiful women alive. She is an icon, a mark of quality, and one of the finest actresses that world cinema has ever known. Teaming up with Director François Ozon for the first time since the magnificently bonkers 8 Women, we as an audience get the feeling that Deneuve wanted to ma...
****
"When my father died in China," Apichatpong Weerasethakul says, "I became a monk for a while, and then stopped." This was last October, at the New York Film Festival, where his new film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was making its American premiere following its claiming of the Palme d'Or for Best Picture at the Cann...
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Frank D'Arbo (Rainn Wilson, from TV's The Office) is a short-order cook with a lot of love to give; enough even to help his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) find her way out of the haze of addiction and into recovery. But a charasmatic drug dealer (Kevin Bacon, tweaked out and uncommonly vicious) has popped up on the scene, and he's slowly...
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A conspiracy thriller taken to the upper extent of arthouse style, Hanna is a befuddling little film. It has the aims of a big budget blockbuster, with secret government initiatives, ultraviolent action setpieces, and enough twists and turns for a rollercoaster. But at its heart is an artsy look at a young girl coming into her own...
** 1/2
Best viewed of an example of how differeing religions can coexist for a common goal (at least for its first half), Of Gods and Men takes that steadfast certainty that comes from great faith and follows it to its tragic end. That's not a spoiler, as the events that befell the Tibirhine monks in Algeria in the mid-90s are a ma...
