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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: 2009
District 9 – bizarre fun!
District 9 is a surprisingly satisfying movie. I wouldn’t give it an award necessarily, but it is really interesting, fun and strange. It’s like 50% pure camp, 50% serious science fiction drama, with the two blended perfectly and neither half … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
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Crazy Heart – It’s not a music movie
The first thing you need to understand is that Crazy Heart is not a “music movie.” It is an “alcoholism movie.” Everything revolves around Bad Blake’s alcoholism. The music is completely incidental – you could substitute almost any career and … Continue reading
Is A.O. Scott reading IRREVIEWS?
I couldn’t help but notice that in A.O. Scott’s latest movie review, his style made a sudden shift toward the reviewing style of IRREVIEWS. He’s still a little pompous and academic, but he does seem to be loosening up a … Continue reading
Avatar – spectacular, and meaningful
All I can say is: James Cameron must really hate America. Just kidding – couldn’t resist. I’m really pleased that this remarkable movie is doing so well in America because it is surprisingly direct and ballsy in its portrayal of … Continue reading
Inglourious Basterds – Is this the worst film ever nominated for an Academy Award?
If Inglourious Basterds had been made in the 1980’s, people would laugh at it now. It would be legendarily bad, held up for ridicule as an example of how incredibly awful films were in the 1980s. The camp, the bad … Continue reading
The Road – A cure for happiness
A. O. Scott did not like The Road. It was “to positive” for him. Apparently he wanted that cute little boy to eat a bullet at the end! He clearly needs some serious help. He probably didn’t like the appearance … Continue reading
Posted in 2009
Tagged A.O. Scott, Cormac McCarthy, Movie Review, Robert Duvall, The Road, Viggo Mortensen
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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
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
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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