GRINDHOUSE

In Scott Frank’s surprisingly great “The Lookout”, we’re told at some point that accident victims who suffer frontal-lobe trauma sometimes lose their inhibitions. Far be it from me to suggest that the directors of “Grindhouse” got clunked something fierce during the shoot, but I’ve rarely seen filmmakers, in current Hollywood at least, expose their sexual and sadistic kinks on screen with such shameless glee! In…

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Tomorrow Never Dies

Whenever I wander around my web site, I’m struck with how incomplete it sometimes is. What I mean is that I’ve seen much more flicks than I’ve reviewed. What’s missing is basically either classics I haven’t taken the time to rent, films I don’t remember well enough to review properly and flicks that, if you ask me, aren’t even worth reviewing all that much. I…

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Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!

Aaaarghh! OK, I gotta say, maybe I’m gonna be too harsh on this half-assed romantic comedy. Oh, there aren’t two ways about it: this is crapola. But my feeling it’s absolute evil is a bit excessive. So you got Topher Grace as Pete, 20-something manager of a Piggly Wiggly grocery store and token smart-ass nice-guy best friend character. Then you’ve got Kate Bosworth as Rosalee,…

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Frailty

Adam and Fenton Meiks are two ordinary Texas kids, living an ordinary life with their dad (Bill Paxton), who has raised them by himself after their mother died while giving birth to the youngest. Then one day, all pretence of ordinary escapes the family home forever when Dad wakes his sons in the middle of the night to tell them he had a vision. An…

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2006 LOG (4)

(1 Apr) Gilmore Girls 2.11 (2002) [ review ] (3 Apr) Lucky Number Slevin (2006, Paul McGuigan) 45 [ Reviewed for Voir ] (4 Apr) Take the Lead (2006, Liz Friedlander) 59 [ Reviewed for Voir ] (4 Apr) South Park 10.2 (2006, Trey Parker) 62 [ “You’ve gotten so smug that you love the smell of your own farts!” ] (4 Apr) Kinky Boots…

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Waking Life

You watch movies. A lot of movies. Some good, some not so good. Once in a while, you see one and you’re like, whoa, now this is something else. Something else good, something else bad, it doesn’t even matter, this ain’t the point. Some movies, whether they succeed at it or not, aim to be more, to be different, and you have to applaud that….

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ZODIAC

This is exactly the kind of film that I find myself arguing about over and over. I can already picture the endless debates I’ll have with friends who’ll insist that this is a masterpiece and won’t be happy with my feeling that it’s good but not great. That’s the silliest thing about it: it’s not even a true disagreement where one loves something and the…

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MICHAEL DEQUINA’S BOLLYWOOD STARTER-KIT (1/2)

  I’ve long been intrigued by Bollywood films, but I had never actually sat down to watch one. Fellow movie critic Michael Dequina generously offered to get me started by sending me a 6-pack of Bollywood, accompanied by background on each title, reprinted below in italics, followed by my own impressions. This little homemade festival should warm up my winter, all right! 1) LAGAAN: ONCE…

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2016 log (11)

(1 Nov) Tuktuq (2016, Robin Aubert)87 [ Reviewed on Extra Beurre ] (3 Nov) The Little Mermaid (1989, Ron Clements & John Musker)85 [ Gorgeous traditional animation, a simple but winning fairy tale story, adorable Ariel and loathsome Ursula, funny sidekicks, catchy songs… What’s not to like? ] (4 Nov) The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan) [ review ] 92 (5 Nov) Tim Burton’s The Nightmare…

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CONTACT

Movie Infos Title: Contact Rating: Year: 1997 Director: Robert Zemeckis  “Contact” is not a bad film, but I can’t say it’s all that good either. You’ve got some great moments and an intriguing, haunting last act, but most of the movie isn’t very exceptional. It’s well directed by Robert Zemeckis, though, and Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey are good enough. The actor that most impressed…

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