All posts by Chris Heller
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Zom Rom Com
A geeky-looking boy is mired in existential despair. He worries about his pale skin, his poor diet, his bad posture. He wants to meet people....
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Hunting Bin Laden
Zero Dark Thirty is not a ''pro-torture'' film. It's also not much of an ''anti-torture'' film, either, in so far as it isn't simply interested...
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Chain Male
Here comes Quentin Tarantino, galloping into the terrible history of American slavery with a shotgun in his hands and a bundle of dynamite slung across...
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The Best and Worst Films of 2012
Don't be discouraged by Hollywood schlock -- we're living in a wonderful age of film. Even if there were a few duds in the last...
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Hobbit Forming
I was ready to be underwhelmed by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Nearly a decade after The Return of the King, director Peter Jackson hasn't...
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Mobster Capitalism
If you're looking for a mediocre night at the movie theater, look no further than Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly. It has everything: a retread...
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Bond That Binds
Midway through Sam Mendes's Skyfall, James Bond is stuck in a familiar situation. He's tied to chair, smirking as a peculiar-looking man lectures him on...
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Log Cabin Fever
Lincoln is why Hollywood should exist. Steven Spielberg's wonderful film about our 16th president isn't a war epic or a maudlin biography. The film only...
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Unfilmable
If there's anything worth praising in Cloud Atlas, the colossal adaptation of David Mitchell's nesting doll of a novel, it's the spectacle. Directors Tom Tykwer,...
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Survival Instincts
I don't have to tell you that How to Survive a Plague is an important film. Nor do I have to tell you that it...
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Killing Yourself
There's no such thing as time travel without plot holes. As characters jump backward and forward in a timeline, technical complexities multiply. Laws of physics...
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Hot Mess
The Paperboy is a hot mess. ''Hot'' because it contrives to get Zac Efron out of his clothes as often as possible. ''Mess'' because it's...
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Teenage Idols
We've all been there. Those moments -- almost always among friends -- when everything fits together in a fit of transcendental bliss. They're fleeting, of...
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Mean Girls
Let's just get this out of the way: Leslye Headland's Bachelorette is not a Bridesmaids rip-off. Yes, both films revolve around women misbehaving at weddings,...
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Fall Film Preview
You’ve had your summer fling with superheroes in form-fitting pants and 3D explosions that made your eyeballs spin. Time to settle in for the serious...
