Email Author Julia Wallace

2008 Stories by Julia Wallace

• A Very British Gangster

  published July 16, 2008

  I'm not sure what makes Dominic Noonan "very British," other than the fact that he hails from Manchester, but the hero of journalist Donal... More >>

• Disfigured

  published July 16, 2008

  Disfigured hangs a lot of heavy issues on a rickety, too-cute premise: A fat woman, Lydia (Deidra Edwards), becomes friends with an... More >>

• Holding Trevor's OD Romance

  published July 2, 2008

  Such an anomie-filled nothing of a movie that it wouldn't even be a pleasure to savage it. The Trevor of the title (Brent Gorski, who also... More >>

• On the Rumba River: Papa Wendo's Story

  published June 3, 2008

  You've never heard of him, but Antoine Kolosoy, a/k/a Wendo, a/k/a Papa Wendo, is perhaps the most beloved musician that the Democratic... More >>

• Merchant Ivory's Before the Rains

  published May 6, 2008

  British plantation owner and colonialist extraordinaire Henry Moores (Linus Roache) fancies himself the cowboy of Kerala, cavorting around the... More >>

• Amy Poehler Pops

  published April 22, 2008

  Starring former and current "Weekend Update" co-anchors Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as uptight, terminally single executive Kate and her vulgar... More >>

• German Nuttiness: Four Minutes

  published April 15, 2008

  Four Minutes won two Lola Awards—the German equivalent of the Oscar—last year, including one for Best Picture, which should... More >>

• Inmates Go Buddhist in The Dhamma Brothers

  published April 8, 2008

  What happens when you put a group of maximum-security prison inmates through the rigors of a 10-day Buddhism boot camp? This is the intriguing... More >>

• Fatal Insomnia Drama Fade at Two Boots

  published March 18, 2008

  This unwatchably moody and mannered film is ostensibly about fatal familial insomnia, an incredibly rare and, yes, fatal disease, but I would... More >>

• Blindsight

  published March 4, 2008

  It's difficult to find anything bad to say about a movie featuring six adorable blind Tibetan children who are determined to climb a... More >>

• City of Men

  published February 26, 2008

  City of God, Fernando Meirelles's 2002 film about Rio shantytowns, was spun off into a hit TV series (something like the Brazilian... More >>

• Beyond Belief

  published February 26, 2008

  This slack-paced doc, which follows Patti Quigley and Susan Retik, two soccer moms who lost their husbands on 9/11, as they raise money for... More >>

• Praying With Lior

  published January 22, 2008

  At the press screening of Praying With Lior, many of the critics around me openly sobbed. This doc is a hardcore tearjerker. Its subject is... More >>

• Alice's House

  published January 15, 2008

  Alice's House is an utterly average foreign art-house film, with all the strengths and flaws that label implies. Director Chico Teixeira... More >>

• Trailer Park Boys: The Movie

  published January 15, 2008

  The Trailer Park Boys are more than just a hit in Canada—their eponymous TV series about life in a Nova Scotia trailer park is a phenomenon... More >>

• Summer Palace

  published January 8, 2008

  The Chinese censors must have had a major "oh no he di'n't!" moment as they watched Summer Palace unfold over two and a half interminable... More >>

• The Business of Being Born

  published January 1, 2008

  Most of the advance buzz about The Business of Being Born has centered around an image of its producer, Ricki Lake. Naked. Giving birth. In... More >>