Andrew Lapin
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Director Gavin Hood's film about a leaked NSA memo becomes an ambitious indictment of the invasion of Iraq itself, though it's saddled with drab visuals of characters frowning at computer screens.
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Amy Poehler directs and stars in this Netflix film that, while light on laughs and conflict, delivers a "cozy reunion happy hour and an ode to female friendships."
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Zac Efron stars as the serial killer in a film that chooses not to linger on the lurid brutality of his crimes, but to explore the sinister charisma that made them possible.
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The film spotlights the Satanic Temple, an organization that stages wry publicity stunts to underscore the separation of church and state. The doc "makes for an electric modern theological debate."
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Hugo's novel tops Amazon's best-seller list in France, following Monday's fire that ravaged the cathedral. The 19th century story was a campaign to get the cathedral restored.
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Victor Hugo wrote Notre Dame de Paris, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in the 19th century to draw attention to the cathedral, which had fallen into neglect and disrepair. It worked.
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This introspective (and occasionally downright lethargic) existential whodunit starring Patricia Clarkson and a cast of ringers is based on the Martin Amis novel Night Train.
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A bored-seeming Matt Smith plays the famous — and famously provocative — photographer in a plodding film that too-dutifully ticks familiar scenes off the Great Artist Biopic checklist.
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Four of the five animated-short nominees this year are weepy tales of parent-child relationships; critic Andrew Lapin reviews them all, and picks his favorite.
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Robert Zemeckis adapts a gripping documentary about one trauma survivor's low-fi art project; the result is a "bloated and lifeless" drama that trivializes his experience.