Owning Mahowny, the new Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle, tells the true story of a Toronto banker who stole millions of dollars to support a gambling habit in the early ’80s.
Jon Popick
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Reversal of fortune
There isn’t a warning strong enough to prepare you for Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (screens Saturday, July 26, at the Dryden). But it’s not only because of the now-infamous graphic violence or brutal rape scene, which had people fleeing, presumably with their hands either up in the air or over their eyes, from its Cannes premiere […]
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The business of murder and swashbucklery
François Ozon was once considered the enfant terrible of French cinema. Then he made the critically praised and very adult Under the Sand and followed it up with last year’s musical murder-mystery 8 Women. In his latest, Swimming Pool (opens Friday, July 18, at the Little), Ozon has finally found a way to effectively blend […]
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The strange, the kinky, and the Krispy
If the air outside is thick enough to cut with a knife, that means it’s time for the Rochester Jewish Film Festival. The festival opens this Sunday (July 13) and continues through the following Sunday (July 20), with all screenings taking place at either the Dryden Theatre or the Little Theatre. City has the inside […]
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A ‘Whale’ of a film
It has won audience awards at film fests from Rotterdam to Sundance, but no trophy is more impressive than the one Whale Rider earned at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. In the seven years I’ve been attending Toronto, the audience has only abused its power once, for 1997’s The Hanging Garden (it had the […]
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Knee deep in Euro pudding
L’Auberge Espagnole, which either means The Spanish Hotel or Euro Pudding (depending on who you listen to), is way closer to being a Real World movie than The Real Cancun was. Actually, if you were able to mate MTV’s groundbreaking reality show with Lukas Moodysson’s Swedish communal comedy Together, you’d end up with something a […]
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Chasing a ‘Whale’ in Lake Placid
For some reason, Fate has seemed determined to keep me from the Lake Placid Film Forum. I didn’t even know about the first Forum, in 2000, until it ended. In 2001 I was all set to go but got run over by a truck instead. Last year, the Forum ran opposite the World Cup, and […]
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Doc… doc… doc… goose!
The biggest edge-of-your-seat summer thrill ride isn’t The Matrix Reloaded, Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle, or even the sex-change drama From Justin to Kelly. It’s a little documentary called Spellbound (opens Friday, June 13, at the Little) that follows eight children to the national finals of the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee in Washington, DC. That’s […]
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Two ‘Freedom’ films at the Little
The cool kids all dig John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, and Wong Kar-Wai, and those filmmakers all love Jean-Pierre Melville. Thusly, the laws of syllogism dictate that the cool kids will also adore Melville, whose Bob le Flambeur was just remade into The Good Thief. They’ll get a chance to fall in love with […]
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Teens and sex, but no pastries
Raising Victor Vargas (opens Friday, May 30, at the Little) is equal parts George Washington, Our Song,and Kids. So if you’re a fan of American independent films with no-name, inexperienced, yet completely convincing adolescent acting talent, do yourself a favor and check it out pronto. Like those three pictures, Vargas features a large cast of […]
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Classically awful humor
For old people too scared of Wire Fu and mutants, Hollywood is offering up a toothless comedy called The In-Laws, which turns out to be even less funny than all of that heady gobbledygook Neo has to say and listen to in The Matrix Reloaded. It’s safe counter-programming for those who still think Friends is […]
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Down with the clones
When I was about eight or nine, my dad got sick for the first time I could remember — I think it was the Hong Kong Flu or something. I remember being pretty concerned, seeing him abed all day in a fairly weakened state. But then, a few days into the illness, he perked up […]
