Bernard Boo's Movie Reviews
All movie reviews written by Bernard Boo
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Wadjda
In perhaps the most definitive image of Wadjda, the titular 10-year-old girl’s bright, zealous eyes track a green bicycle as it appears to glide across the top of a stone wall alongside a dusty road, riderless, like a vision...
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Blue Caprice
The endeavor of dramatizing the events of something as horrific as the 2002 Washington D.C. killing spree of “The Beltway Snipers”, John Allen Muhammed and his then 17-year-old partner, Lee Malvo, requires a deft hand and a measure of...
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Populaire
Set in late ’50s Paris, Populaire is a loving throwback to the saccharine rom-coms of that decade, dipped in candy coating and wrapped in bright art-deco packaging. It’s scrumptious with every bite, and it’ll make you smile, but it...
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Afternoon Delight
As Juno Temple (Killer Joe)—playing a glitter-sweating stripper named McKenna—grinds and gyrates on Kathryn Hahn (Parks & Recreation) in a private booth in a strip club, staring seductively, deeply, into the older Hahn’s eyes, it’s a perfect representation of...
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Instructions Not Included
In Instructions Not Included‘s most heartwarming, gleeful moments, a father and his 6-year-old daughter (wearing matching, brightly colored pajamas that look ripped straight out of Yo Gabba Gabba) jump, play, tumble, and carelessly goof off together in their home,...
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Short Term 12
It’s become fashionable over the past few months to shower Destin Cretton’s (I’m Not a Hipster) social worker drama, Short Term 12 (a veritable Sundance phenom), with buckets of adulation. It deserves every drop—this is a supreme effort for...
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The Patience Stone
Like an intoxicating, slow-moving swirl of deep colors and even deeper emotions, Afghani filmmaker and novelist Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone, an adaptation of his own award-winning novel, Syngue Sabour, quietly enraptures the senses and rewards those who possess...
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You’re Next
It’s no wonder Adam Wingard’s indie horror flick You’re Next is so damn good—with fellow indie powerhouse filmmakers like Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, and Ti West walking around the blood-splattered set, Wingard was in good company. But take no...
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Austenland
Jerusha and Jared Hess are the husband and wife filmmaker duo that brought us the off-kilter comedies Gentlemen Broncos, Nacho Libre, and most famously Napoleon Dynamite. Jerusha tries her hand at solo directing with Austenland, a rom-com that exchanges...
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Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
There’s no way around it. David Lowery’s darkly romantic Texas tale, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (love the title), starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara as bandit lovers, begs comparison to the films of Terrence Malick, one of the cinematic masters...