Stephanie Zacharek

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REVIEW: Porn Stars Are People, Too, in Delicious Elektra Luxx

At one point in Sebastian Gutierrez's exceptionally sweet-natured Elektra Luxx, an entertainment set in the world of adult entertainment, a young porn-site impresario…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Coke Adds Life -- Just Not to Take Me Home Tonight

It's bad enough that Michael Dowse's retro-comedy Take Me Home Tonight isn't nearly as much fun as the '80s actually were. Even worse, it's less fun than most '80s…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Gore Verbinski Loves the Uglies in Rango

When it comes to animation, kids like bright colors, and often adults do too. That's just one reason to applaud Gore Verbinski's Rango for having the courage of its…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Monkey Ghosts and Amorous Catfish Bring Grace, Beauty and Weirdness to Uncle Boonmee

When Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, those of us at home who'd been following the young…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Drive Angry 3-D Is Disreputable Fun, Until 3-D Fatigue Sets In

Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer's exploitation extravaganza Drive Angry 3-D is not recommended for the squeamish, the highly suggestible, or children under 40. It should…

7 years ago

Stephanie Zacharek's Oscar Picks: Middlebrow Schmiddlebrow

Every year, usually around early March, I survey what I've seen since January and begin to worry that we're not headed into a particularly good movie year. But by year's…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Mildly Intriguing Heartbeats Won't Set Your Pulse Racing

Xavier Dolan's Quebecois love-triangle drama Heartbeats shows what happens when a director's filmmaking gets in the way of his filmmaking. Dolan -- who also wrote the…

7 years ago

Berlinale Dispatch: The Good News (and Bad News) About Iran

There are just two days of screenings left at the Berlinale -- the prizes are awarded on Sunday -- but today is my last day at the festival, my day of reckoning. This is…

7 years ago

Berlinale Dispatch: Miranda July Can't Quite Read The Future

Filmmaker, writer, performance artist, what-have-you Miranda July ambled onto the scene in 2005 with her debut film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which became a…

7 years ago

Berlinale Dispatch: Ralph Fiennes Has a Bard Time With Coriolanus

I'm a sucker for modern-day reinterpretations of Shakespeare, a la Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Michael Almereyda's Hamlet, not because…

7 years ago

Berlinale Dispatch: Wim Wenders Takes His Place in the 3-D Vanguard

Now that everyone has grown tired of touting the allegedly thrilling promise of 3-D, we may have some chance of figuring out exactly what its future might be. While I…

7 years ago

Berlinale Dispatch: A Mixed Bag From Africa, and Zoe Kravitz Keeps it Real

When I realized that German director Ulrich Köhler's Sleeping Sickness was about Germans in Africa -- strangers in a strange land, don't you know? -- my first thought…

7 years ago

Berlinale Dispatch: Zachary Quinto, Margin Call Top Fest's First Full Day

The problem with having festival commitments is that there are days when you can manage to see only one movie before deadline, while your colleagues are seeing two…

7 years ago

Berlinale, Day 1: The Miracle of Flight, and Seeing More Than Jeff Bridges' Earlobe

Yes, airline security is a major pain in the ass, and the food is not to be believed (was that whitish blobby mass of hormones supposed to be chicken?), but to…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Gnomeo & Juliet Proves Lawn Ornaments Have Feelings Too. So There!

Underage youth defy their feuding families by falling madly in love, sleep together before marriage and end up dying tragically because of crossed signals. What a dud of…

7 years ago

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