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Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) Perhaps the most blistering cinematic attack ever directed at an incumbent president, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 lays into George W. Bush with a fierceness that the director’s ardent fans will surely relish. For its furious two hours, the film – being released by Harvey Weinstein’s Fellowship Adventure Group after…
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Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968): B
Atheism is no match for Catholicism in Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, the third installment of Hammer studio’s crimson-smeared vampire saga starring Christopher Lee as the lascivious hemoglobin-guzzling Count Dracula. Twelve months after the events of the last film, a priest finds a woman with bite marks hanging dead inside his church bell, a…
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The Law of Desire (1987): B
Narrowly beating Fatal Attraction to the screen in 1987, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Law of Desire concerns a similarly unhealthy relationship, although in the director’s colorfully kinky Spain, the dangerous romance is shared by adult film director Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) – a sexually promiscuous artist whose last lover Juan couldn’t quite reciprocate Pablo’s love and thus…
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Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966): B-
Perhaps the least effective Hammer horror film featuring Christopher Lee as the fly-by-night Count, Dracula: Prince of Darkness features an awkward silent performance from its star as the titular monster, whose ferocious snarl and lack of dialogue makes the character more feral monster than debonair, courtly spawn of Satan. Yet despite a less-than-stellar turn by…
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Horror of Dracula (1958): B+
From the late ‘50s through the ‘70s, no one did horror like England’s Hammer studios, and the crown jewels in their terrifying oeuvre were the gothic Dracula pictures starring the incomparable Christopher Lee as the blood-sucking prince of darkness. Horror of Dracula (also known simply as Dracula) marks Lee’s first turn as the Count, as…
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Shrek 2 (2004)
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) Shrek and the gang return for more pop culture-referencing, fairy tale mixing-and-matching, and rampant farting in Shrek 2, a sequel to the 2001 blockbuster that delivers neither less, nor more, than its wildly popular predecessor. As is customary during the summer movie season, this second go-round is a slightly…
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Super Size Me (2004)
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) In case you thought McDonald’s was good for you, Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me – a Sundance sensation about the hazards of our fast food obsession – is the fledgling documentarian’s wake-up call to you and the millions of other Americans patronizing the golden arches and its ilk. Spurlock,…
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Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) Exhibiting far less of his previous work’s dark humor, Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) is an exuberant comedy of manners drunk on its own outlandish melodrama. This slight tonal shift, however, doesn’t stop Almodóvar from indulging in his favorite obsessions – pulsating primary…
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What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984): B+
Gloria (Carmen Maura) is a put-upon maid who, in order to stay alert while toiling away at multiple jobs, pop No-Doze pills like candy. Still, these uppers hardly alleviate the frustration and anger of contending with her loutish tax-driver husband (who once published a forged collection of Hitler’s letters, and is in love with German…
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Dark Habits (1983): C
Pedro Almodóvar’s Dark Habits has plenty of premise but little payoff. Yolanda (Cristina Sánchez Pascual), a nightclub singer and smack addict, watches her prick boyfriend overdose on heroin laced with strychnine and, fearing the police will blame her, flees and takes refuge at a convent called the Order of Humble Redeemers. The convent, however, is…
