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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
Category Archives: 2010
Twelve Thirty (2010) – wall-to-wall dialog, but it takes a lot more than that!
The quite long opening sequence of Twelve Thirty grabs you in a way that few opening scenes do. No title or credits, no music, just this strangely fascinating and consistently surprising conversation between two young kids, extended over several different … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Pitch Perfect – not a great music movie, but fun and diverting
I don’t know anything about the TV show The Sing Off, or the world of modern a cappella music, so I can only react to this film as a typical teen music movie, blind to any injustice it may or … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Trouble with the Curve – a nicely done feel-good movie
Trouble with the Curve is one of those old-fashioned feel good movies, the kind where you know exactly what’s coming to ya. A simple, appealing plot with good guys and bad guys; minimal but interesting and well-integrated sub-plots; some light … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Mao’s Last Dancer (2010) – well done and enjoyable
Mao’s Last Dancer is quite well done for what it is. I don’t love this kind of thing, generally speaking, but I found this enjoyable. The story is not super interesting, perhaps, but it does manage to hold your attention. … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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The Way (2010) – a light, soothing, somewhat meditative film
The Way is a nice little movie about a father whose son dies on the El camino de Santiago, and who spontaneously decides to walk it himself when he goes over to pick up his son’s body. I would not call this … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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Dragon Tattoo (USA) vs. Dragon Tattoo (Swedish) – which is better?
So now we have two film versions of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo made within a couple years of each other: a Swedish-language version (Män som hatar kvinnor) and an American version made by David Fincher. The Swedish version is … Continue reading
The Promise: The Making of Darkness On The Edge Of Town – An amazing glimps back to a time when pop music still mattered
The Promise is a very remarkable documentary. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in pop and rock music, music recording, and the creative process in general. I particularly recommend it to young people who think modern pop music … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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The Debt – a very average political thriller
The Debt is entertaining enough – it’s not a terrible movie. But it really disappointed me and failed to leave me with much of anything. It’s really very average. It’s just an average, Hollywoody political action film, one that suffers … Continue reading
Main Street – great cast, but so disappointing
I really wanted to like Main Street because it has a lot of actors that I really like: Colin Firth, the fabulous Patricia Clarkson, Amber Tamblyn, Orlando Bloom (yes, I think he has a nice, interesting quality on screen and … Continue reading
The Adjustment Bureau – entertaining, for what it is
I have very little to say about this movie. It’s not great. It’s not good. But it is a diverting piece of mediocrity that does not leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, and in the current movie … Continue reading
Posted in 2010
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