When you make horror movies for a third of a century, you are likely to lay the occasional egg. With his latest, Wes Craven serves up a particularly scrambled mess.
The legendary director reached what arguably could be called his innovative apex about a decade ago (now that’s scary) during the fertile period in which he […]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by admin
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Woody Allen has three sides: the flat-out comedian, the dramatist with a twist, and the Bergman-inspired misery monger. In each face, there have been good films and bad — most fans will sing praises of Bananas, Manhattan, and Interiors while rebuking A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Alice, and September — and yet fans still hold […]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by admin
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Curse of the Golden Flower is director Zhang Yimou’s ambitious attempt to blend martial arts action with Shakespearean melodrama. It’s not a perfect marriage but it offers two hours of solidly over-the-top entertainment featuring incredible visuals and powerful performances by international icons Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat. While aspects of Curse of the Golden […]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by admin
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This is a mood movie. Not the movie’s mood. Your mood while you’re watching it. If you’ve got the itch for a syrupy, sentimental, blatantly manipulative film experience, then “Curly Sue” is just your ticket. And who isn’t ready for something gushy once in a while? As much as I resisted through the whole first […]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by admin
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“Cube”. There is something gratifying to the opening of the 1997 Canadian film where the hapless prisoner is caught in a grid of razor wire and literally falls to pieces. The fact that a gory set piece such as that could be followed by a psychological thriller with the feel of a good “Twilight Zone” […]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by admin
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With a shoestring budget, little-known actors, and a tiny set, director and co-writer Vincenzo Natali has created a compelling and gripping movie that will keep you engaged from intriguing beginning to startling end. The film was funded by the Canadian Film Centre, with special effects supplied free of charge by the Toronto visual effects company […]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by admin
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The day after local girl Becky is murdered in the woods, new boy Owen (Julian Morris) arrives at Westlake Preparatory Academy, where, inducted into a secret society that meets at night to play lying games, he quickly gets to show off his talent for casual deception. As news of Becky’s demise break […]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by admin
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The talented, yet under-appreciated Mark Dacascos stars as the “Crying Freeman,” the popular assassin of manga fame in an international film directed by an upstart French filmmaker who thinks he’s John Woo and Tsui Hark in one? Either sounds like a potential genre fan’s dream or a recipe for disaster. In the case of CRYING […]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by admin
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“Cry-Baby” is basically “Grease” without Divine inspiration, an agitated spoof of the leather-jacket genre from Baltimore’s tacky John Waters. Set right next door in 1954, it is a mock-heroic medley of doo-wop, rockabilly, white bucks and bullet bras aimed not at camp followers, but at a mainstreamier audience of adolescents and nostalgic boomers.
This time around […]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Comedy, Musical, Romance | No Comments »
In a modern day retelling of the French play Les Liaisons Dangereuses aka Dangerous Liasons, Screenwriter/Director Roger Kumble reminds me of why classic pieces of writing are poorly modernized (see William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes and Great Expectations with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneyth Paltrow). I Know What You Did Last Summer […]