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Recent Reviews
- Good Kill – An artistic exploration of drone assassinations
- Citizenfour – a fascinating and important topic, but a disappointing documentary
- Interstellar – Probably the best film of the year, certainly the most enjoyable!
- Laggies – a delightful little film about late-blooming misfits
- Two Days, One Night – it’s (almost) exactly what you expect it to be
- Whiplash – a disgusting, stupidly manipulative piece of absurdity.
- Still Alice – big stars, big production, but still just a Hallmark movie of the week
- Wild – it’s surprisingly well-made and fun to watch
- Black Sea – diverting, but sadly predictable
- Birdman (Or the Expected Emptiness of Pretension)
- Mr. Turner – Planet of the Ape
- The Imitation Game – It’s an abomination
- A Brief Word on the 2014 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts
- Kill The Messenger – The important and tragic story of Gary Webb, the mainstream media, and the CIA
- This is Where I Leave You – the latest in a long line of “family reunion” movies
- A review of summer cinema – it was pretty grim!
- The Trip to Italy – It never should have been made
- A Most Wanted Man – Superficially entertaining, but poorly-made and overrated
- Magic in the Moonlight – It’s pissing me off!
- The Purge: Anarchy – Surprisingly, it’s rather good
- I Origins – ambitious and entertaining
- Boyhood – a bit one dimensional, but its one dimension is lovely, impressive and fun to experience
- Obvious Child – cute, dignified and gutsy
- Snowpiercer – a fantastic, riveting science fiction action allegory
- Edge of Tomorrow – it’s fairly entertaining
- Begin Again – confronting the future of pop music head-on
- The Fault in Our Stars – not super-moving, but definitely enjoyable
- Hellion – a gritty tale of fucked up parents and children
- Night Moves – a cool, subtle portrayal of hippy-liberal activism turned violent
- Cold In July – an outstandingly fun and unusual film, and a paean for the 1980s
- Austenland – so horrible, I’m speechless
- Elena – 80 minutes of torture
- Lucky Them – Toni Collette takes center stage and lights up the screen!
- Belle – it means well, but God is it slow (and dull)
- Finding Vivian Maier – an okay documentary on a fascinating artist
- The German Doctor (Wakolda) – Diverting, but feels more than a little contrived
- Chef – it’s heart is in the right place
- Jodorowsky’s Dune – a bizarre and amazing documentary
- Hateship, Loveship – it goes down well
- Divergent – entertaining, but there’s a lot wrong with it
Author Archives: roguespirit
Ringu (1998) – A farily high quality B-thriller
I’m not really an aficionado of horror films, but I do appreciate really good ones, so naturally I have always been interested in Ringu, the famous Japanese horror film from quite a few years back. Well, I finally caught up … Continue reading
Posted in Films of the 1990s
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Black Death – avoid, unless you are studying violent death in the Middle Ages
The only purpose of this film is to show (in graphic detail) all the different ways someone could die violently in the Middle Ages. That’s what they are referring to when they describe the film as “historically rooted.” They pretty … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Meek’s Cutoff – God Awful!
Jesus, you figure that if all those actors and filmmakers dragged themselves all the way out to the middle of fucking nowhere to shoot this film they could have at least filmed a fucking ENDING for the movie! I can … Continue reading
Country Strong – It’s great!
Don’t pay any attention to the critics. Country Strong is a wonderful movie, probably one of the best films from 2010, in my opinion. And ignore the movie trailer which made it look like some throwaway piece of trash. Country … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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The Other Woman – a good little film
The Other Woman is a good movie. It’s not a great film, but it is well done, earnest, and avoids a lot of common pitfalls in this genera (the kid being too cute, the ex-wife being too unsympathetic, etc.) I’d … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
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Black Book – not a great movie, but a good story, decently told
Before I begin this review: Is it just me, or are these filmmakers fixated on Carice Van Houten’s boobs? Scenes where her shirt gets ripped off her body seem to be something of a unifying theme throughout the film, and … Continue reading
Posted in Films of the 2000s
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Bridesmaids – warmed-over Tina Fey
This movie needed Tina Fey – both the humor and dignity of her writing and her comic presence on-screen. Not that I am some huge Tina Fey fan, I’m not, but I admit her material is great compared to most … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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Dinner for Schmucks – better than expected
The critics hated Dinner for Schmucks because it is based on a fundamentally negative depiction of rich, powerful people. I am noticing this more and more: decent films that are panned and total flops, which curiously also depict the rich and … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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You Again – Poor Kristen Bell
What on earth is Kristen Bell doing to her career? Anyone who has ever seen Veronica Mars knows what a great on-screen quantity she is – attractive in an unusual way, great sarcastic comic delivery, good all-around actress. Why does … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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The Runaways – great subject, but rather poorly done
I really wanted to like The Runaways because I like that band – I think they were cool and I think their music was cool. Their music was part of the last dying breath of real Rock & Roll, before … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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