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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: 2008
The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (2008) – The early days of the modern “French Hollywood” movement
It is becoming quite clear that French cinema is settling comfortably into aping the style of Hollywood blockbusters from about 25 years ago, and through this trying to eclipse the rotting corpse of Hollywood at their own game. As with … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Bottle Shock (2008), reconsidered
Continuing with our survey of wine movies, my wife and I decided to revisit Bottle Shock. Here is my prior review from the early days of Irreviews; obviously we did not like it back then. But on second viewing, we actually … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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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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Mamma Mia – in its own way, it’s rather brilliant
Mamma Mia is obviously very light fair. There’s no need to see it if you don’t like ABBA songs, and even if you do you should also not have anything against silly musicals with almost no story. This film makes … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist – not un-enjoyable(!)
I love the story concept of Nick and Nora, and it is not un-enjoyable, I suppose (how’s that for a non-endorsement endorsement?) It has its moments, and it is cute and very earnest which tends to smooth over its problems … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Zack and Miri Make a Porno – when will the age of Seth Rogan finally run its course?
I do not understand the Seth Rogan industry. What is the appeal of this loosely connected collection of films by Rogan, Judd Apatow, and now Kevin Smith, all of which have plots born from a 7th grade boys locker room … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Valkyrie – not so bad, including Cruise
Valkyrie is an easy target because Tom Cruise is such a freak. But in reality, this is not a bad movie. True, it’s not a good movie either. But it is watchable, a little slow perhaps, but watchable. The story … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Bottle Shock …
Bottle Suck only held me for about 20 minutes. It’s like they were determined to make a movie out of this topic, but had nothing to go on for story lines, so they just threw all these random (and really … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Pride and Glory – not another one!
After holding a red hot iron over the face of a man’s infant child to make him divulge the whereabouts of some scum bag he’s looking for (to kill, of course), the bad cop says “If you tip him off … Continue reading
Posted in 2008
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Changeling (2008)/The Changeling (1980) – A “changeling double feature”
My wife and I recently did a “changeling” double feature: Changeling (2008) with Angelina Jolie, and The Changeling (1980) staring George C. Scott. I did not realize it, but the films have rather similar themes – children disappearing and other … Continue reading
Posted in 2008, Films of the 1980s
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