Joel Arnold

Joel Arnold appears in the following:

Small Town Plots 'Grand Seduction' To Win Big-City Doctor's Heart

Sunday, June 01, 2014

It's hard to shake the appeal of a plucky small town, underestimated by city folk, trying to pull one over on the outsiders. Set in the Newfoundland harbor of Tickle Head, the dramedy The Grand Seduction focuses on a community of just 120 people attempting to bring in jobs and ...

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Panama's Canal Divides A Country Into Haves And Have-Nots

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Jorge Quijano has one of the coolest office views in the Americas: the Pacific port entrance to the Panama Canal. The panoramic vista seems to help Quijano, who heads the Panama Canal Authority, see the bigger picture.

On the one hand, Quijano understands why Panama has run the canal so ...

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A Family In Grief And A Neighborhood Sketched Too Lightly

Saturday, May 10, 2014

It's always unfortunate to see potential wasted onscreen, in acting, writing, or directing. It's worse to see it happen all at once with artists universally known as capable of much more. God's Pocket, the directorial feature debut of Mad Men's John Slattery and featuring one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last ...

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A Panicky Pianist, Playing Like His Life Depends On It

Thursday, March 06, 2014

A world-renowned pianist known for cracking under the pressure of performance sits down to play a concerto before a packed hall. Then he sees the message scrawled in red on his sheet music: "Play one wrong note and you die." The movie almost writes itself.

The premise of the confined ...

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Mouse, Meet Bear, And Let's All Make Friends

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Animated movies excel in bringing to life the impossible stories, the ones drawn from fairy tales and mythology and the ones exploring the imaginary lives of creatures and things. It's an incredibly attractive notion, isn't it, to imagine there's a whole world going about its business, just out of sight?

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'Lego Movie': A Goofy Toy Story That Genuinely Clicks

Thursday, February 06, 2014

If you'd told 10-year-old me there was going to be a movie all about Legos and the world they inhabit, I'd have been in line at the theater right then. Oh, it's not out until 2014? Okay, let me just build a time machine out of Legos and travel to ...

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After A Crisis, A Long, Laborious Quest For A New Normal

Friday, January 24, 2014

The face is the same, but the personality is different. It's a sobering, unfair truth that Vanetia (Maxine Peake) must confront about her husband. Again and again, in fact, once he's returned home from the hospital, after months in a coma and recovery in the wake of a rare kind ...

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A Churl Of A Squirrel, On The Make In The Big City

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Given the feel-good themes of the average kids' movie — be yourself, follow the golden rule, love each other, blah blah blah — it's refreshing to see an animated comedy chuck that guck and focus on a real jerk. Not a misunderstood Princess Elsa, or a Wreck-It Ralph with a ...

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It's 'About Time' For Romance — And Rather More

Friday, November 01, 2013

Time-travel movies usually have a clear end in sight, some situation that needs fixing. Marty McFly needs his parents to get together; John Connor needs to avoid Terminators long enough to grow up; the guys from Hot Tub Time Machine need to stop messing up the past and get back ...

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A Crawl Through 'The World's End'

Friday, August 23, 2013

You like wacky, hyperreferential movies that tap the fan boy brainstem? Sure you do. So do we — which is why we had a pair of critics compare notes on what is already being hailed as one of the year's funniest films. Pour an imperial pint of your favorite beverage ...

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Alone Together, And Learning What That Means

Thursday, August 08, 2013

There's a certain wonder in watching an artist known for a distinct voice, or for working with a specific set of tools, make a completely credible transition to something else.

Think of Will Ferrell turning in that surprisingly earnest, low-key performance in Stranger Than Fiction. Or Martin Scorsese paying vivid ...

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To The Beaches Of Chile, Hallucinogens In Tow

Friday, July 12, 2013

Sebastian Silva's 2009 film The Maid examined the physical and psychological demands of working as a nearly indentured live-in housekeeper, and the toll taken by more than 20 years in the same household.

Perhaps in part because Silva based the film on his childhood growing up in Santiago, Chile, the ...

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'The Heat': Broads In Blue, Kicking Buddy-Cop Behind

Thursday, June 27, 2013

In a summer movie season that's been light with women in major roles, a Melissa McCarthy-Sandra Bullock buddy-cop comedy sounds like a welcome change of pace. Add in the fact that this movie is Paul Feig's follow-up to Bridesmaids, and you have something especially interesting.

Well, not to overstate ...

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'Now You See Me': An Unconvincing Con Job

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Magic is compelling when it actually amazes, accomplishing the difficult feat of freeing its viewers from disbelief and letting them bask in the wonder of seeing what they know is impossible. Movies work the same way, and part of the equation for both is developing the right expectations. The promised ...

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This Time, It's A Dull Ache Of A 'Hangover'

Friday, May 24, 2013

Well, they did say this one was going to be different.

After The Hangover II essentially duplicated the structure of the first movie --three guys piecing together a night of debauchery and mayhem none of them can entirely remember — director Todd Phillips promised that the third would go in ...

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Tribeca Diary: Documentary Roundup

Friday, April 26, 2013

Writer Joel Arnold is surveying the scene at the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs in New York City through April 28. He'll be filing occasional dispatches for Monkey See.

I keep going back to the documentaries. Out of the 14 films I've seen here so far, the documentaries have ...

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Tribeca Diary: 'A Birder's Guide To Everything'

Friday, April 26, 2013

Writer Joel Arnold is surveying the scene at the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs in New York City through April 28. He'll be filing occasional dispatches for Monkey See.

Birding has been getting some attention lately. Last year's HBO documentary Birders: The Central Park Effect, plus various appreciations this ...

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Tribeca Diary: 'The Kill Team'

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Writer Joel Arnold is surveying the scene at the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs in New York City through April 28. He'll be filing occasional dispatches for Monkey See.

At Tribeca over the weekend, I was initially reluctant to seek out The Kill Team, a documentary focused on American soldiers ...

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Tribeca Diary: 'Red Obsession'

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Writer Joel Arnold is surveying the scene at the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs in New York City through April 28. He'll be filing occasional dispatches for Monkey See.

Beginning in Bordeaux and traveling as far as western China as it tracks the reach of today's global wine market, Red ...

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Missed Sundance? Can't Do Cannes? Try Tribeca

Thursday, April 18, 2013

This week, the Tribeca Film Festival kicks off its 12th year. With a shorter history than Sundance or Cannes — the two major festivals that flank it on the calendar — Tribeca has grown in fits and starts since its 2002 launch as an effort to revitalize Lower Manhattan ...

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