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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: 2011
In a Better World (Hævnen) – a gripping Danish film about the use and misuse of violence
I finally caught up with the 2011 Danish film, In a Better World (Hævnen), a film I was interested in back when it was playing in New York theaters, but wound up avoiding out of fear it was a bleak, … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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In Time – A fantastic little B-film
In Time is one of those little B-films that takes you totally by surprise and winds up being way better than you ever expected, way better than most A-films manage to be with their gigantic budgets, coiffed superstars, and exalted directors. It … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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The Awakening – another mediocre horror film
They just don’t know how to make horror films any more. The Awakening started off okay, I suppose. Rebecca Hall (always a welcome presence in any movie) plays a cool, intelligent female scientist who debunks ghosts. She goes to a … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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10 Years – More like 20 years!
In this movie, a bunch of people go to their 10 year high school reunion, and not much happens. Actually, nothing happens. This movie meant well. It’s low-key and a bit gritty, and it did have some pretty good moments … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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We Need to Talk About Kevin – Such ridiculous trash!
The moral of this story: If your five year old son is still in dipers, talks like a violent and deranged 20 year-old, stares at you like a serial killer, and your husband thinks there’s nothing wrong with this, just … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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Hesher – strange and pointless
Hesher is about a father and son who can’t move on after the mother is killed in a car crash. Their process is “aided” by Hesher, a violent whack-job played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who invades their lives and causes random mayhem. … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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A Separation – Interesting, but not that impressive
A Separation was interesting, but it did not impress me as much as I expected given the glowing critical acclaim. The most interesting aspect of the film is the implicit class conflict, between the presumably middle class family and the decidedly lower … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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Margaret – it’s not horrible, maybe, but it sure ain’t good!
Kenneth Lonergan has an undeniable talent for showing people at their least attractive. Margaret is chock-full of quality scenes where people act like selfish, obnoxious, insufferable assholes, completely oblivious to their own foulness. The problem is, none of these scenes are … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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The Art of Getting By – art, society, and being different
I really liked this movie. The Art of Getting By tackles an idea that is very central to my own life experience – namely, how people who are a little bit different, who do not conform to the highly scripted … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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The Big Year – well-made, and very enjoyable
The previews of this movie definitely did not do it justice. They made it look like some idiotic buddy film, or an insufferable “bucket list” piece of shit. It is actually a warm and endearing movie about the relationship between love, friendship … Continue reading
Posted in 2011
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