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Blindness (2008): C-
Fernando Meirelles, he of the noxiously overpraised City of God and The Constant Gardener, may be the most pretentious filmmaker working today. An artist who can’t let a single frame exist without some form of look-at-me embroidery, Meirelles’ primary interest is stroking his own ego through excessive aesthetic exhibitions, a reputation reconfirmed by Blindness, an…
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Fest-ing, Once Again
The first week of New York Film Festival press screenings is over, and I’m already wiped. Still, at least there have been a few films to recommend, including three of the four review-linked below (and especially Tony Manero, which is really something else). Keep an eye out for more fest reviews in the coming days,…
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Burn After Reading (2008): B+
Superficially, Burn After Reading – a spy spoof about a bunch of nitwits knee-deep in baffling espionage – couldn’t have less in common with the Coen Brothers’ previous, Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. Yet as it smoothly segues from one goofy scenario to another, the surface foolishness of the Coens’ latest feels like a…
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Lou Adler
In 1981, famed music producer Lou Adler – fresh off the success of having directed Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke – made Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, a rough-and-tumble music-industry critique about an all-girl punk band’s rise and fall. Virtually no one saw it, because Paramount never gave it a proper theatrical or…
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Forever Strong (2008): C-
Because no sport should be deprived the inspirational Hollywood treatment, rugby finally gets a chance to take center screen courtesy of Forever Strong, a based-on-actual-events tale of a punk who, through an unlikely turn of events, winds up playing rugby for the hated rivals of his high school team, which is coached by his demanding…
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Choke (2008): C+
Mixing nihilistic wit, stringent social satire and jagged pathos, Chuck Palahniuk’s writing has a tendency to careen wildly between bracing mordancy and messy, faux-shocking salaciousness. For a time, Clark Gregg’s adaptation of the Fight Club author’s Choke delivers enough of the former to compensate for the latter as it focuses on the plight of Victor…
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Sunday Night Link-orama
The New York Film Festival begins its press screening marathon tomorrow, so keep an eye out for reviews of a number of (supposedly) big titles in the coming weeks. In the meantime, however, here are links to my recent reviews. Now Playing: Righteous Kill (Slant magazine) Flow: For Love of Water (Cinematical) Bangkok Dangerous (2008)…
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Towelhead (2007): C-
Alan Ball returns to nasty, vile, repressed suburbia with Towelhead, an adaptation of Alicia Erian’s novel that the American Beauty writer fashions into another cartoonishly broad, repulsive vision of middle-class life. In a cookie-cutter Texas planned community in the early ‘90s (an arbitrary time frame employed mainly for its slightly dated outfits), thirteen-year-old Arab-American Jasira…
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Gomorrah (2008): A-
Delivering social-realism tension without once dipping its toes into mobster-glorification waters, Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah – adapted from Roberto Saviano’s bestselling tome – is a tough, cynical, blistering fictionalized study of the Camorra crime organization that controls much of Naples (as well as wields worldwide influence, including having contributed money to the reconstruction of the World…
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Elite Squad (2007): C
Failing to fulfill the promise of his stunning 2002 documentary Bus 174, José Padilha succumbs to monotonous, hollow flamboyance with his City of God clone Elite Squad. Co-written by God scribe Bráulio Mantovani, Padilha’s film peeks into Rio de Janeiro’s crime-ridden slums via the viewpoint of the police and, specifically, the BOPE special forces unit…
