Critic Reviews
| 100 |
Chicago Reader
Huston's performance is spellbinding. And the naturally lit digital cinematography (by Rose and Ron Forsythe) is both poetic and harrowingly intimate in depicting Ivan's impending death.
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| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Director Bernard Rose has created a committed, intelligent and fascinating piece of work with no irony about it.
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| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
A remarkable film.
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| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
The acting is uneven, but Huston's performance gains eerie intensity as the tale moves from sensationalistic melodrama to humanistic tragedy.
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| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
This cynical film paints a hugely unflattering portrait of life in Hollywood's fast lane. I have no way of knowing exactly how much is exaggeration, but I've got a creepy feeling that the film is closer to the mark than I want to believe.
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| 70 |
LA Weekly
To the degree that ivans xtc. works, it's thanks to Huston's revelatory performance.
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| 70 |
New Times (L.A.)
Shot on High Definition video, this exceptionally well-made but exceedingly bleak peek at tinseltown would be unbearable were it not for the sympathetic performance of Danny Huston.
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| 70 |
The New York Times
Contrived as this may sound, Mr. Rose's updating works surprisingly well. -- the story's sympathetic, tragic sense of the fragility of individual dignity is, if anything, made even more haunting in this version.
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| 60 |
Village Voice
Boldly engineering a collision between tawdry B-movie flamboyance and grandiose spiritual anomie, Rose's film, true to its source material, provides a tenacious demonstration of death as the great equalizer.
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| 60 |
Variety
Achieves a certain poignancy through its sensitivity to mortality in a context where illness and death are often thought of primarily in terms of gossip, blown deals and lost money.
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| 60 |
TV Guide
Its high-definition video images -- are coated with a convincing sheen of disgust, and Huston's performance is riveting.
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| 50 |
New York Daily News
It is both inside-baseball and self-parody, exposing a world that is just as ruthless and shallow as we've been shown it is in films like "The Player" and "Permanent Midnight."
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| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
Not enough to save ivansxtc from, of all things, dullness.
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| 38 |
New York Post
Behind the glitz, Hollywood is sordid and disgusting. Quelle surprise!
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