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Short Cuts
Dance Party U.S.A.
Dirk Shafer captures the circuit-party scene on digital video
By David Ehrenstein
Published: June 13, 2002
"Circuit parties," the massive days-long gay events held periodically in major cities and fashionable resort towns nationwide, are a subject ripe for movie treatment, and Dirk...
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Breaking the Ice
Diamond Men is a movie that would make for good television
By Robert Wilonsky
Published: June 13, 2002
This is the kind of film Robert Forster starred in before his career was resurrected by Quentin Tarantino and Jackie Brown; it's direct-to-video, by way of Starz! Forster stars...
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Good Will Stunting
Matt and Ben pick a predictable, maudlin project to Greenlight
By Luke Y. Thompson
Published: June 6, 2002
Whatever problems Stolen Summer may have encountered during the production process, as documented on the HBO reality series Project Greenlight, it doesn't feel like the...
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Murder by Proxy
Cure, an offbeat thriller from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, is first to hit L.A.
By Andy Klein
Published: June 6, 2002
A police detective (Koji Yakusho, star of Eureka and Shall We Dance?) is confronted with a series of inexplicable homicides. All have the same M.O., but they involve different...
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Just Doing It
For some couples, nothing beats frequent Sex With Strangers
By Luke Y. Thompson
Published: June 6, 2002
Directed by Joe and Harry Gantz, of HBO's popular Taxicab Confessions, Sex With Strangers follows three couples in the swinging "lifestyle." Mississippians Shannon and Gerard...
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Chaos Theory
The hypnotic Maelström is full of good-natured twists
By Gregory Weinkauf
Published: June 6, 2002
As astute an appraisal of post-modern feminine confusion as today's cinema has to offer, this freakish fish story from French-Canadian writer-director Denis Villeneuve (August...
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Super Bad
The funked-up Undercover Brother keeps it r-r-real
By Gregory Weinkauf
Published: May 30, 2002
The beauty of Malcolm D. Lee's smart, sharp comedy lies in its dexterity, as it raises one fist in a friendly Black Power salute and firmly gooses the whole audience with the...
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Painted Lady
Eric Rohmer's latest combines artwork and live action in a striking new style
By Andy Klein
Published: May 30, 2002
This latest film from 82-year-old French New Wave stalwart Eric Rohmer is enough of a departure that it may either confound or irritate his fans. Unlike his usual stylistically...
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Short Cuts
Vinyl Fetish
Scratch reveals the power of two turntables, minus the microphone
By Gregory Weinkauf
Published: May 30, 2002
Here we have an intuitive, polyrhythmic art form bridging cultures and titillating the young at heart. This definition could easily apply to baby-making or gang-banging, but in...
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Workplace Woes
Bartleby is all surface and no substance
By Luke Y. Thompson
Published: May 30, 2002
A real missed opportunity, this update of a Herman Melville short story is all surface and no substance, like the pilot episode of yet another workplace sitcom. David Paymer...
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Brilliant or Baffling?
The Art of Dying is no Scream
By Robert Wilonsky
Published: May 23, 2002
This 2001 Spanish production, directed by lvaro Fernández Armero, is so derivative of numerous other sources it's almost novel; it's either a brilliant fusion or a heap...
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Local Color
Pepe le Moko is not to be missed
By David Ehrenstein
Published: May 23, 2002
Every movie lover has heard of Pepe le Moko, the suave French crook hiding in plain sight in the slums of Algiers, with his romantic watch-cry of "Come wiz me to ze Casbah."...
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City Slicker
A 1940s Japanese comic gets the high-tech treatment in grand style
By Luke Y. Thompson
Published: May 23, 2002
Anime director Rintaro (X) is out to dazzle us with this adaptation of a 1940s Japanese comic, and for the most part he succeeds. Blending eras as deftly as Baz Luhrmann in...
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Dream On
A faith healer gets a literary jump-start in The Mystic Masseur
By Jean Oppenheimer
Published: May 16, 2002
Merchant Ivory productions--Howard's End and A Room With a View being two of the most notable--are famous for their almost tactile sense of time and place. The company's latest...
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How Sweet It Is
The weak are easily corrupted in this 1957 masterpiece
By Robert Wilonsky
Published: May 16, 2002
A more nasty and cynical film was never made, and this from a director (Alexander Mackendrick) known previously for his comedies; though, when read between the lines, this 1957...
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Fitting In
American Chai has some fresh ideas about the lives of the culturally complex
By David Ehrenstein
Published: May 16, 2002
It's easy to see why this comedy-drama about a thoroughly assimilated Indian-American college student at loggerheads with his tradition-minded father has been such a big hit on...
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Being Leon Barlow
Big Bad Love spends two hours inside a writer's tortured mind
By Bill Gallo
Published: May 2, 2002
Actor Arliss Howard's debut as a director explodes with brave ambition while falling a little short, perhaps, on traditional narrative sense. So be it. If devotees of the...
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Bad Deal
Deuces Wild tries for retro chic but comes up a few cards short
By Andy Klein
Published: May 2, 2002
In the late '50s, the head of a Brooklyn street gang (Stephen Dorff) must fight off attacks from a neighboring gang run by a junkie (Balthazar Getty), who is fronting for a...
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Glory Bound
A Shot at Glory veers just wide of its goal
By Robert Wilonsky
Published: May 2, 2002
Kicking around the film-fest circuit since 2000, this football film (soccer, actually, but we are in Scotland) is the quintessential sports film, complete with a ragtag team of...
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Tales From the Cryptologist
Heroic Brit tries to crack the Nazi code without cracking up in Apted's Enigma
By Jean Oppenheimer
Published: May 2, 2002
There is more than a little of A Beautiful Mind's John Nash in Tom Jericho, the hero of Michael Apted's World War II-era romantic thriller. Both men are brilliant...
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