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SLOW WEST

John Maclean's SLOW WEST is foremost a showcase film. His first full-length directorial effort, the film seems to exist to demonstrate and validate Maclean's cinematic acumen. Described as a European road trip movie, it follows Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a sixteen year-old Scottish aristocrat who journeys to America seeking his lost love Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius). Along the way he is ... more >

Entering the world of “ParaNorman”

One of the best in animation this year
Kodi Smit-McPhee (voice), Tucker Albrizzi (voice) and Anna Kendrick (voice)
Directed by Chris Butler

Every kid has that movie that’s going to scare the crap out of them for the first time. The stop-motion animation studio Laika, which was behind 2009’s fantastic “Coraline” and now this Tim Burton-meets-low-rent monster movie mash-up “Paranorman,” again manages a good first step for scary movie virgins. Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a young kid living in Blithe Hollow who’s a bit of an oddball, ... more >

Let me in

It's not fair is it?
Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Grace Moretz and Elias Koteas
Directed by Matt Reeves

Life is unfair to middle children and remakes. If Matt Reeves’ vampire coming-of-age story "Let Me In" had been made before the Swedish original--Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In”--would we automatically think it was the better of the two? It didn’t work that way and we’ll never know. What I can say? "Let Me In," written and directed by "Cloverfield"’s Reeves, underlines and ... more >