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Ammonite Review: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan Romance Lacks Heat

From the beginning, Ammonite wants audiences to know that the work of paleontologist Mary Anning is out of fashion. Mary, played by a particularly stoic Kate Winslet, says this repeatedly to other characters, and displays an almost aggressive wariness toward any tourist who hints at an interest in her career. The film similarly revels in the daily monotony of her life, which appears to consist of digging through rocks no one else gives a second glance, a lonely figure on a gray beach. Presumably writer-director Francis Lee wishes to underscore the solitude of Anning’s work; yet it’s not clear if…
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Irresistible Review: Jon Stewart Political Comedy Lacks Punchline

Irresistible takes place in Rural America, Heartland USA. Seriously, that’s the insert title placed over a small Wisconsin town where farmer Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) becomes a viral sensation after criticizing his local government’s voter ID law. It’s also the kind of generic Americana imagery sold to us every two years by an endless barrage of political campaign ads, a fact writer-director Jon Stewart aims to deconstruct in this  parable about red states and blue states, and Cooper’s country mouse meeting a particularly desperate city one—elite Democrat strategist Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell). As Stewart’s second film after Rosewater, which was…
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