Erica Abeel

Film Review: Claire Denis’s “Stars At Noon” — A Romance Novel Elevated by Auteurist Flourishes

October 2, 2022
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The action, as it were, is mostly the exhaustively filmed grappling of two beautiful people in no-star motels.

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Film Review: “Lost Illusions” — 19th Century French Corruption Makes for Thrilling Entertainment

June 10, 2022
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Winner of seven Cesars, this mordant portrait of the corrupt Parisian press mid 19th century, along with the commodification of just about everything, speaks loudly to the internet era.

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Film Review: “The Northman” — You-Are-There with the Viking Beserkers, Nuttiness and Magic Galore

April 25, 2022
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The Northman is grounded in a manically precise capture of the Nordic world of the 9th century AD, but refracted through the lens of a whacked-out visionary in a spew of eye-popping images.

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Film Review: “C’mon c’mon” — Taking Care of Kids

November 21, 2021
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For a movie starring a kid, this one is adroitly crafted and goes easy on the treacle.

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Film Review: “Red Rocket” — A Dog’s Life

October 26, 2021
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No woman, I’m willing to bet, could have filmed the sex scenes in Red Rocket. She would have cracked up laughing or thrown up.

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Film Review: Pedro Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers” — Let It Bear You Away

October 11, 2021
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Pedro Almodovar’s latest, Parallel Mothers, sets up a dialectic between women’s regenerative powers and the blood-soaked history of pre-WWII Spain.

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Film Review: Nicholas Jarecki’s “Crisis” — Death, Opioids, and Corporate Greed

February 27, 2021
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Crisis takes on the opioid crisis – which has killed more people than the war in Vietnam — and gives corporate villainy (Big Pharma) the Hollywood treatment.

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Film Review: “French Exit’ — In This Absurdist Romp a Diva Makes a Grand Exit

February 12, 2021
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Defiant and tonally offbeat, French Exit mirrors, in a sense, its female protagonist, who doesn’t give a damn what the world thinks of her.

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Film Review: “The World to Come” — A Haunting Female Frontier Romance

February 5, 2021
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The excitement of these films – perhaps the word frisson would not be amiss – is that these women are envisioned as explorers in the land of Eros, map-makers of new terrain, discovering and inventing love as they go.

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Film Review: Freud Never Asked What Men Want, “The Climb” Tells Us

November 8, 2020
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The terrific The Climb looks at bro-bonding in a way you’ve never quite seen.

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