MovieSorter

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Lay the Favorite
Very Good 66 Points 2012

True stories bear a burden when they get turned into movies. Stay true to the story and the movie will be less than spectacular. Punch it up and get accused of selling out.

Lay the Favorite falls prey to the former as it recounts a real young woman’s underground education. The indomitable…

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WikChip Image Formidable Wife: Catherine's Tulip
Alpha Dog
Very Good 66 Points 2006

Suburban drug running goes tragically awry in this fictionalized account of a real Southern California murder. Nearly as alarming as the 2000 murder is the callow nihilism of the SoCal teens and twentysomethings involved with it. Living in comfort, they admire the gangsta doggs celebrated on MT…

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WikChip Image Justin Timberlake: Dude can act.
Gomorra
Great 66 Points 2008

A new addition to the canon of great mafia movies, Gomorra entertainingly details the mundane savagery and sociopathic activities of Italy’s oldest organized crime organization. Darkly funny, Gomorra brings to life Roberto Saviano’s hugely important book

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WikChip Image Camorra Country: Cancer @ the heart o...
Borat: Cultural...
Good 66 Points 2006

A comedic classic of dubious progeny, uncertain impact, and consistent low blows.

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Sydney White
Great 66 Points 2007

Girl gets guy in Sydney White, an entirely winning collegiate comedy starring the entirely winsome Amanda Bynes as Sydney White. Focusing on a coed, partially set in a sorority, it provides a cheekily distaff view of campus life – on and off Greek Row.

Indeed, Joe Nussbaum’s film catalogs c…

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WikChip Image Opposing Angels in a Collegiate Dream
Locke
Really Great 66 Points 2013

Locke is an extremely understated title for a totally gripping movie about an extremely understated guy. Ivan Locke spends the whole movie driving away from home and from his life. iDrive Away or Distracted Driving or iPhone Home would give a better sense of the tightly-wound existentia…

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WikChip Image Problems? He's got a few.
The Hundred-Foo...
Very Good 66 Points 2014

The Hundred-Foot Journey is a feel-good, foodie movie starring Helen Mirren set in provincial France. Mature date-night movie choices get no safer. Predictable as a brasserie menu, it’s equivalently satisfying.

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WikChip Image Well Put Together Woman
The Station Agent
Very Good 66 Points 2003

The Station Agent can be thought of as a little movie about a little man, but should be thought of as a perceptive movie about a dignified man who rises well above his miniature stature. Peter Dinklage plays that man, all 4’ 5" of him, the movie being a study of how a dwarf makes his way in an …

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WikChip Image 3 Lonely People, 2 of them Lost
Priceless
Good 66 Points 2006

Priceless is an amusing trifle, as notable for its fabulous settings as for its easy charm and light comedy. Audrey Tautou’s gold digger ends up tutoring, and then falling for an unlikely partner in crime. Unfortunately, Priceless never catches fire, though it does deliver several funny mom…

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Elegy
Great 66 Points 2008

Ben Kingsley gets in much deeper than planned after seducing a much younger Penélope Cruz in Elegy. Isabel Coixet’s movie comes by its sexual fixations via pedigree: Phillip Roth’s novel The Dying Animal. Think of it as Portnoy’s Complaint, the When I’m 64 rendition – "Will you still nee…

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WikChip Video Ben Kingsley seduces Penélope Cruz