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Leonard Maltin

GANGSTER SQUAD

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • January 11, 2013 1:02 AM
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  • 4 Comments
"Gangster Squad" represents a missed opportunity. Director Ruben Fleischer and screenwriter Will Beall have discarded a great real-life story (uncovered by journalist Paul Lieberman in his book of the same name) and given us an overblown comic strip instead.

movie review: The Tree Of Life

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • May 27, 2011 4:15 AM
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  • 32 Comments

Far be it for me to contradict the Cannes Film Festival jury, or some critics who saw The Tree of Life there and sang its praises to the skies, but I respectfully disagree. I would never dismiss the film out of hand—it has too many beautiful passages, conveying the conflicting emotions of childhood—but I think its reach exceeds its grasp. One can applaud Terrence Malick for attempting something as bold as a picture that ruminates on the place of mankind in nature and the history of the universe. But even an ambitious artist has to be judged on results, not intentions. I couldn’t connect the “big bang,” or the interaction of dinosaurs, with the life of a family in 1950s Texas, and frankly, I found the shots of protozoa, flowing water, and the cosmos itself to be beautiful but—