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Pete Vonder Haar

Pete Vonder Haar is a regular film contributor at Voice Media Group. VMG publications include Denver Westword, Miami New Times, Phoenix New Times, Dallas Observer, Houston Press and New Times Broward-Palm Beach.

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Latest Articles

Sure, The Boss Baby Looks Like Your Average Kids' Flick – but It’s Actually Horrific

By Pete Vonder Haar
Mar 28, 2017

The Boss Baby might look, at first, like any other major studio animation release. Directed by DreamWorks vet Tom McGrath (Madagascar, Megamind), the movie hits all the expected notes: the enduring importance of family, the persistence of untrustworthy/clueless adults, and the inherent hilarity of shoehorning David Mamet dialogue into a...
Stalin's Ukrainian Genocide Demands a Better Film Treatment Than Bitter Harvest

By Pete Vonder Haar
Feb 21, 2017

Director George Mendeluk has stated that he wanted to make Bitter Harvest to bring wider attention to the Holodomor, the forced famine imposed by Joseph Stalin that killed between three and seven million ethnic Ukrainians in the early 1930s. That’s certainly a subject worthy of a film, but the question...
Everybody Loves Somebody Is the Rare Romantic Comedy That Deserves Love

By Pete Vonder Haar
Feb 14, 2017

Romantic comedies seem to have soured more than most movie genres. It could be due to their insistence on happy endings, or perhaps it’s the rigid structure that demands easily avoidable conflict followed by the protagonist breathlessly chasing down his or her true love just in time for the end...
Yoga Hosers Finds Kevin Smith Barely Making a Movie

By Pete Vonder Haar
Sep 2, 2016

Were we wrong to root for Kevin Smith? When he burst onto the scene in 1994, it was the most improbable of rags-to-riches movie narratives: bankrolling Clerks by selling his comic book collection and running up thousands of dollars in credit card debt. Almost overnight, he joined the likes of...
What Disney's Horrible Tween Shows Taught Me About Parenting — and Today's TV Comedy

By Pete Vonder Haar
Aug 25, 2016

It's hard out there for a TV comedy fan. That's the case for network television, at least. Before All in the Family altered the TV comedy landscape, most sitcoms hewed closely to the formula of solving minor annoyances in 22 minutes (with the occasional “OMG Vincent Price in Hawaii” curveball)...

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