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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
Up in the Air – entertaining, but ultimately disappointing
Up in the Air deals with a difficult and timely topic – people getting laid off and having their lives destroyed. At the same time it sort-of deals with another timely issue in society: the ridiculous (and pernicious) positive thinking … Continue reading
Jellyfish (Meduzot) (2007) an interesting little film
Jellyfish reminds me so much of the style of filmmaking that characterized the independent film renaissance of the early-to-mid 1990s – sparse music, uncluttered plots, well-written dialog, warm and simple presentation of characters, moments of deep emotion captured with tenderness, and a … Continue reading
Posted in 2007
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall – a sweet but flawed movie
My main association with this film is the ad campaign here in New York back before the film came out, where the phrase “I hate you, Sarah Marshal” was plastered on wild signs everywhere. This made me curious about it, but then … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Invictus – another mediocre Clint Eastwood Movie
Okay, let’s cut right to it, shall we. Despite all the critical acclaim and the awards, Clint Eastwood is really not a very good filmmaker. I’m sorry, he just isn’t. He’s not bad, I suppose, just kind of mediocre. Invictus suffers from the … Continue reading
Leap Year – It’s not as bad as everyone says
15 minutes into Leap Year, I leaned over to my wife and asked “why do we like Amy Adams?” Her answer was “she has a great nose.” I thought “yeah, that just about sums it up.” Great nose, great hair, … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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The Lovely Bones – a weak story, weakly told
The whole point of The Lovely Bones, as I understand it, is to chronicle how the family slowly heals and moves on. Unfortunately, this is the one aspect of the story and the film that are not done very well. It … Continue reading
Jennifer’s Body – cool teenybopper horror
Jennifer’s Body is a smooth and cool teenybopper high school horror film in which a indie band of Satan worshipers abducts and scarifies a girl they think is a virgin in order to rise to the top of the crowded … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
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Sherlock Holmes – Victorian Robo-Warrior
This film grated on my nerves. I held my ears for much of it, it is so loud and irritating. The jangling music nearly drove me insane. It features many scenes where frighteningly large metal objects fly through the air … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
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It’s Complicated – It’s Disappointing
Despite the fun and promising preview for It’s Complicated, it turned out to be a disappointment. It has major script problems and in my opinion almost everyone in the film is miscast. Basically, in the first third, Alec Baldwin holds … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
Tagged Alec Baldwin, Holiday, It's Complicated, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Movie Review, Nancy Meyers, Steve Martin
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Did You Hear About the Morgans? – please: enough with Sarah Jessica Parker already
At first pass the problem with Did You Hear About the Morgans? is the weak and uninspired script. But then you remember that Hugh Grant is so talented he routinely pulls off mediocre crap. So what really went wrong? Three … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
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