Nick Schager

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The Catechism Cataclysm Review

Taking the notion of toilet humor literally but incapable of delivering its promised religious satire, The Catechism Cataclysm is more muddled than its tongue-twister title. Produced by Eastbound & Down masterminds David Gordon Green, Jody Hill, and Danny McBride, and starring that show’s standout weirdo Steve Little, writer/director Todd Rohal’s......
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Fireflies in the Garden Review

Familial dysfunction takes glib, syrupy form in Fireflies in the Garden, a flashbacky saga of past discord and present-day reconciliation that should have remained on the shelf it has been occupying since its 2008 Berlin International Film Festival premiere. Dennis Lee's semi-autobiographical—yet doggedly inauthentic—story concerns the reluctant return of author......
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The Way Review

The Way might lack the Chicken Soup for the Soul imprimatur, but writer/director Emilio Estevez's travelogue tale of fathers and sons (starring his own dad, Martin Sheen) trades in a kindred brand of warm, soothing uplift that viewers might read as insight into the Sheen family saga; we did not......

Connected Review

Connected opens with director Tiffany Shlain confessing to cell phone addiction, a focus on herself that's indicative of this documentary, which concentrates as much on the filmmaker's own story—specifically, her surgeon/author father's battle with brain cancer and her simultaneous high-risk pregnancy—as on her main topic: the vital and positive ways......
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Born and Bred Review

By valuing the complexity of individuals' stories over superficial competition drama, Born and Bred bucks the unwelcome nonfiction trend fostered by Spellbound. Focusing on three up-and-coming East L.A. pugilists -- teen-age twin brothers Javier and Oscar Molina and 13-year-old adoptee Victor -- Justin Frimmer's documentary astutely casts tournament challenges as......
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Glee: The 3-D Concert Movie Review

Following in the live-film footsteps of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie transposes its flash-in-the-pan teen-pop phenomenon to three-dimensions with mundane, for-fans-only results. Kevin Tancharoen’s energetic document of the popular Fox comedy’s 2011 spin-off tour (culled from two East Rutherford, NJ performances) is chockablock with......
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Gun Hill Road Review

Life is a series of constant adjustments to ever-shifting realities in Gun Hill Road, a Brooklyn-set indie about a criminal, Enrique (Esai Morales), who returns home after a three-year prison term to find that things aren't quite as he remembered them. Specifically, wife Angela (Judy Reyes) is trying to end a......

The Perfect Age of Rock 'N' Roll Review

Amy Winehouse's recent death at 27 grants grim topicality to The Perfect Age of Rock 'N' Roll, a hackneyed saga about two musicians of the same legendarily doomed age: floundering frontman Spyder (Kevin Zegers) and his childhood friend Eric (Jason Ritter), whose songs he stole for stardom and whom he......
Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Last Crusade

Bespectacled Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) squares off against amphibian-faced Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, a magnificent finale for this beloved billion-dollar fantasy franchise. Before that confrontation can take place, though, David Yates' epic must first chart Harry's attempts alongside best friends Ron......