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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
Winter’s Bone – Like Frozen River, it’s grim but interesting
Winter’s Bone is an example of what I would call the new indie movement. (Frozen River would be another example.) This “movement” is still just a film here and there, so I would not call it a “resurgence” of any … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Conviction – bascially, it’s a TV movie.
I really wanted to like Conviction, because it is about such a great, true story of love and perseverance, but the sad reality is that it is poorly written and structured, and just plain disappointing. Basically, it’s a TV movie … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Inside Job – Probably the most important film of the last ten years
Inside Job is a brilliantly made documentary. It explains exactly what happened in the 2008 financial crisis that devastated the world. The film beautifully structures a tremendous amount of information, and it simplifies for our consumption the complex inter-related greed … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
Tagged Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, documentary, financial crisis 2008, Henry Paulson, Inside Job, Larry Summers, Matt Damon
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The Perfect Score (2004) – light-hearted, but also smart and subversive
It came out a long time ago, but I have always been interested in seeing The Perfect Score because of my own tortured history with the SAT. I grew up in a family where the SAT was considered an objective … Continue reading
Secretariat – It’s okay, but they missed their chance
My wife and I like (good) sports movies, and we like “horse movies,” so we were very excited to catch a sneak preview of Secretariat at the Union Square. Coming right on the heals of viewing The Social Network earlier … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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The Social Network – misogynistic and boring
Everyone is calling The Social Network a great film because everyone is in love with Facebook and everyone is in love with the idea of child geniuses becoming billionaires. It’s all idiotic groupie behavior, just like the two women who … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Good Hair – a fun and interesting documentary
My wife and I caught up with Good Hair this past weekend and we both really enjoyed it. Despite the presence of Chris Rock, I would not say this film is laugh out loud funny, but it is very entertaining … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – a bad 80s movie now has a bad sequel!
My wife and I stood in a line to see this at Union Square on opening night. What can I say about this film? I did not enjoy it, and there is something about its badness that makes it very … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
Tagged Carey Mulligan, Eli Wallach, Frank Langella, Michael Douglas, Movie Review, Oliver Stone, Shia LaBeouf, Wall Street
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Buried – Avoid
This film is a stupidly manipulative, insulting and worthless piece of trash that should be avoided at all costs. What I can’t believe is Ryan Reynolds getting involved with this. The guy is a wonderful actor – warm, good looking, … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Sunshine – Has there ever been a Sci-Fi film this good?
I could barely breathe for a very large portion of this film. My first reaction was disbelief that they could still make science fiction movies like this. But then I realized that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a science … Continue reading
Posted in 2007
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