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ORDINARY ANGELS: CYNICS BEWARE

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
2054

Ordinary Angels is a true story and a remarkable one at that. Living with our two-year old granddaughter has made me especially vulnerable to dramas about young children in peril, and it didn’t take long for this one to open my tear ducts.  Alan Ritchson (who stars on Reacher) plays a working stiff who lives in the shadow of his wife’s death five years ago. When his youngest daughter’s liver disease worsens he doesn’t know where to turn. He’s lucky to have his mother (Nancy Travis) on hand to help raise his kids, but he’s stone broke and deep in debt. Out of nowhere a good Samaritan (Hilary Swank) pops into his life, having used her hair salon as a fund-raising headquarters, and hands him a check…

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IO CAPITANO: ITALY’S OSCAR CONTENDER

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
1242

I must admit I haven’t followed Matteo Garrone’s career closely since he burst onto the world stage with Gomorrah. This grueling but captivating film reaffirms his place in the front ranks of filmmakers, as he puts us in lockstep with its two protagonists: teenage cousins in Dakar who have a burning desire to go to Italy and find a better life. They are played by newcomers Seydou Sarr (who was singled out as Best Promising Actor at the Venice Film Festival) and Moustapha Fall. A man in their Senegalese village who arranges such illicit trips tries to discourage them but they cannot be deterred; they have been planning and saving for six months.  Whatever you might imagine about their journey as migrants is nothing compared to the…

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THE PROMISED LAND: A SCANDINAVIAN SLEEPER

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
1873

I’ve come to trust Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen—his good taste in movie roles is seasoned with a sense of daring, as we’ve seen in such outstanding imports as The Hunt and Another Round. I’m also an admirer of screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen, whose many credits include Brothers and After the Wedding, in which Mikkelsen appeared. (Jensen also won an Oscar for his short subject Election Night, which he wrote and directed.) Their latest collaboration, with co-writer and director Nikolai Arcel and Ida Jessen, is a sprawling historical saga based on the life of a poor but stubborn farmer named Ludvig Kahlen. In the mid-1700s, he set out to capture the attention of his King by cultivating a large plot of land that everyone else had written off as barren. This puts him at odds…

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ACADEMY SPREADS THE LOVE AROUND

Leonard Maltin
1980

An honor roll that ranges from Barbie to Spider-man, that recognizes a German actress and an underappreciated African-American actor, can’t be called anything but inclusive. That’s what I like about this year’s Oscar nominees. As always, the Actors’ branch—by far the largest number of voting members—is always welcoming to newcomers like Sandra Hüller, who is so good in Anatomy of a Fall, and relative newbies like Danielle Brooks and Colman Domingo, both of whom have paid their dues. Even Jeffrey Wright, for all his experience on stage, film, and television, has seldom had a leading role as rich as the one he plays in American Fiction. Its director and screenwriter, Cord Jefferson, is not a kid either but this marks his first feature film. The Holdovers’ Da’Vine Joy Randolph was a Tony…

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WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN JANUARY

Contributors
1864

The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. What’s New on DVD/Blu-ray/4K in January: Eileen, Coffin Joe, Chantal Akerman, and More! NEW RELEASE WALL Eileen (Decal Neon): In director William Oldroyd’s follow-up to the acclaimed Lady Macbeth, Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie perform a complicated dance of possession and obsession as two very different employees of a grim 1960s juvenile facility: McKenzie’s mousy, put-upon worker is dazzled by Hathaway, all Marilyn Monroe–hair and cigarettes and sophistication as a mysterious new therapist at the hospital. The characters drag each other to dark places, but there’s no taking your eyes off the two leads. Also available: Butcher’s Crossing (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment): Nicolas Cage leads a party…

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NEW LIFE FOR VINTAGE FILMS

Leonard Maltin
1659

Like many of you, I’ve been spending more time at home than I used to. Turner Classic Movies presents a nonstop array of films from the past, including some I’ve managed to miss across the years. And I’m always happy to discover, or revisit, an old short subject from Vitaphone or MGM. Call it a leftover from the pandemic, but my wife and I need to nudge ourselves to go out these days. The availability of new movies at home—especially during awards season—for a journalist like myself is a virtual invitation to stay home. Even my favorite film of 2023, The Holdovers, is now available digitally and on Blu-ray. Yet almost every trip to a theater serves as a reminder of how rewarding it is to…

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A MUST-SEE NEW DOCUMENTARY: VISHNIAC

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
1541

I feel foolish admitting that I was unfamiliar with Roman Vishniac and the incredibly evocative photos he shot in Weimar Germany and its surrounding countries before they fell victim to Hitler and the Nazi party. Little did he dream that he was capturing the faces and attitudes of people who would vanish from the earth a short time later—a “lost generation.” His daughter could recall standing in his darkroom watching these images come to life, and she is the primary link to the protagonist of Laura Bialis’s compelling new documentary Vishniac. The pictures alone would warrant a feature-length film—and fill several published volumes—but Vishniac lived into his 90s and thrived in a second career here in the U.S. as a scientist who popularized microphotography. His…

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