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Minority Report (2002): B+
Not simply Steven Spielberg’s most prescient sci-fi work but also one of his finest, Minority Report may not fully investigate the moral questions raised by its tale (based on a Philip K. Dick short story), but it makes up for such deficiencies with muscular rollercoaster thrills and a poignant portrait of man’s capacity for free…
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Army of Darkness (1992): C+
Replacing horror with uninhibited monster movie jokiness, Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness picks up where Evil Dead II left off, with chainsaw-handed hero Ash (Bruce Campbell) transported via an unholy portal to 1300 A.D., where he’s forced to find the Necronomican (i.e. the Book of the Dead) to return home, all while fighting an army…
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Published Film Reviews – 2011
8/15/11 - Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Scheherazade, Tell Me A Story (Village Voice)8/15/11 - The Smurfs (Village Voice)8/15/11 - The Perfect Age of Rock 'N' Roll (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Gun Hill Road (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Golf in the Kingdom (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Fire in Babylon (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Zookeeper (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Raw Faith (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Cars 2 (Village Voice)8/15/11 - Mr.…
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The Way Back (2010): B
A tale of man’s capacity to endure that’s layered with Christian undercurrents, The Way Back tells the astounding true-life story of three prisoners who in 1940 broke out of a Siberian gulag and journeyed four-thousand miles by foot across the snowy wilderness, arid desert and Himalayan mountains to freedom in India. Peter Weir’s first film…
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2010 Film Critic Polls
Aside from contributing to Slant Magazine's year-end feature, I was also fortunate enough to be invited to participate in three 2010 film critics polls, held by The Village Voice, indieWIRE, and The L Magazine (respectively). My ballots for the first two, and the third's final results, can be found below. The 2010 Village Voice Film…
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Final 2010 Round-Up
As this post's title makes clear, here are the last of my 2010 reviews (not counting some blog reviews that'll appear here shortly). On to 2011! Out Now:True Grit (Slant magazine)Little Fockers (Slant magazine)Summer Wars (Time Out New York)
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The Fourth Kind (2010): C-
“I’m actress Milla Jovovich,” states Milla Jovovich while explaining, during an awfully awkward prologue, the conceit of The Fourth Kind, a film in which Jovovich and fellow actors reenact supposedly real footage involving a string of possible alien abductions in Nome, Alaska in 2000. That authentic video is largely culled from the therapy sessions of…
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Megamind (2010): B
Turning a traditional Superman-esque scenario on its enormous noggin, DreamWorks’ animated Megamind proves a revisionist superhero saga rooted in questions of free will. In Metro City, narcissistic do-gooder Metro Man (Brad Pitt) does constant battle with his insecure nemesis Megamind (Will Ferrell), a giant blue-headed villain whose nefarious motivations – as spied in an intro…
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Knight and Day (2010): C
Knight and Day attempts to walk a delicate tightrope, simultaneously parodying and indulging in outrageous super-spy action, and fails in both endeavors. James Mangold’s big-budget snooze features Tom Cruise as Roy Miller, a rogue secret agent man who may also be insane. This possibility greatly disturbs June Havens (Cameron Diaz), the classic car-restoring mechanic (ha!)…
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And Soon the Darkness (1970): C+
A mood of open-air claustrophobia is the prime calling card of And Soon the Darkness, Robert Fuest’s thriller about the nasty predicament two pretty girls find themselves in while bicycling on holiday through the French countryside. Set along roads that cut through vast fields and by deep forests, the film’s empty spaces are confining and…
