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Jarhead (2005): C+
Eschewing politics in favor of an intimate look at life in the Marine Corps during 1991’s Gulf War, Sam Mendes’ Jarhead (its title the moniker for marines, whose crew-cut heads resemble jars) functions primarily as a prolonged metaphor about suppressed sexual urges. Reluctantly entering the military because of his father’s distinguished service in Vietnam, Swofford…
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Cannibal Ferox (1981): C-
More crudely constructed and slightly less gory than the similar Cannibal Holocaust, Umberto Lenzi’s putridly shot Cannibal Ferox (aka Make Them Die Slowly) charts the journey from New York City to the Amazon jungle of a NYU anthropology student named Gloria Davis (Lorraine De Selle), her brother Rudy (Danilo Mattei), and slutty sidekick Pat (Zora…
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Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997): A
A stunning tale of survival in which director Werner Herzog once again crafts the portrait of a kindred adventurous spirit, Little Dieter Needs To Fly focuses on Dieter Dengler, a German-American who recounts his youthful dream of being a pilot, his success at fulfilling this aspiration by flying warplanes for the U.S. military during Vietnam,…
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The Fog (1980): A-
Following up his breakthrough hit Halloween, John Carpenter eschewed slasher flick terror in favor of ghost story eeriness with The Fog, an atmospheric tale of the angry undead in which a small California coastal town becomes literally haunted by its past. An ominous fog rolling into Antonio Bay carries with it the sinister spirits of…
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Hidden (2005): B-
For its first half, Michael Haneke’s Hidden (aka Caché) feels like the year’s best film, delivering gripping tension and mystery while simultaneously, and craftily, exploring the allure (and ramifications) of cinematic voyeurism. Commencing with an extended static shot of an apartment complex that soon reveals itself to be a VCR videotape image, Haneke’s latest critique…
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Loggerheads (2005): B+
Loggerheads’ endangered turtle symbolism is perhaps its only significant misstep, as writer/director Tim Kirkman’s multilayered tale of adoption, atonement and acceptance is otherwise characterized by an assured restraint and attention to the subtleties of human interaction. Kirkman’s narrative (“based on a true story”) is divided into three related strands which take place in successive years:…
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Capote (2005): B-
Biopics may be the most unbearable of cinematic genres – what with their superficial, impression-heavy lead performances and reductive reconfiguration of messy lives into tidy three-act narratives – but Bennett Miller’s Capote narrowly avoids such pitfalls thanks to a bravura turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the titular writer and an economical script that focuses…
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Elizabethtown (2005): C
Like being trapped in a car with a music-obsessed hipster intent on proving his coolness by playing every classic rock album in his Case Logic CD Wallet, Elizabethtown proves to be an excruciatingly narcissistic nostalgia trip saturated with writer/director Cameron Crowe’s favorite tunes. Crowe’s semi-autobiographical melodrama involves a sneaker designer named Drew (Orlando Bloom) who…
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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005): B+
A delirious orgy of self-reflexive ridiculousness, Michael Winterbottom’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story makes up for its thematic thinness with boisterous, buffoonish extravagance. Constructed as a film-within-a-film-within-a-film (or something like that), Winterbottom’s rollicking exercise in mirthful meta mayhem charts the making of a movie about the making of a cinematic adaptation of Laurence…
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I Spit on Your Grave (1978): C-
Often vilified as one of the most contemptible films ever made, writer/director Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (also known by the more upbeat title Day of the Woman) largely fails to live up to its horrendous hype, turning out to be simply another crudely made, explicitly violent ‘70s-era exploitation flick. Naïve Manhattanite Jennifer…
