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Funny Games U.S. (2008): C
Given that Michael Haneke has been making the same movie for his entire career, it’s fitting that his latest is a shot-for-shot English-language redo of his 1997 meta-shocker Funny Games (technically dubbed Funny Games U.S.). Consequently, there’s nothing new here for the initiated, as the Austrian director’s stateside debut is a thoroughly unnecessary photocopy of…
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Prehistory Stupidity
The weekend’s major release is 10,000 B.C., and like virtually every other Roland Emmerich film, it’s big and dumb. Until next Friday, when the surprisingly solid Horton Hears a Who! arrives, those dying to sit in a movie theater would be better served checking out Paranoid Park, The Bank Job, or Blindsight, a documentary about…
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Doyle on Paranoid
In the field of cinematography, Christopher Doyle has few peers. I was able to chat with the legendary cameraman via email for IFC News, an interview in which he discussed (among other topics) his latest collaboration with Gus Van Sant and the way that physical spaces provide artistic inspiration. Christopher Doyle on Paranoid Park (IFC…
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CJ7 (2008): C+
Stephen Chow goes down an E.T. route with CJ7, a cute and cuddly family film that not only fails to generate the exhilarating cartoon zaniness of his heralded Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle but, more importantly, lacks any convincing magic or heart. Living in a cramped little shack with his construction worker father Ti…
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Vantage Point (2008): D
From every perspective, Vantage Point is a wholesale disaster. Director Pete Travis and screenwriter Barry Levy’s fractured political thriller was reportedly inspired by Rashomon, which means that the filmmakers don’t understand Akira Kurosawa’s classic, as instead of utilizing their multiple-viewpoint tale to investigate the unknowability of truth, they merely provide different angles on the same…
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Falling Down on the Job
Thanks to a host of unpredictable incidents, my recent track record of posting new link collections has been spotty at best. Nonetheless, from here on out, these posts will appear on Fridays, as that will allow you, dear readers, the opportunity to make educated decisions about your weekend moviegoing. Though given the crap that’s been…
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City of Men (2007): C
Paulo Morelli’s City of Men revisits the Rio de Janeiro favelas of Fernando Meirellas’ City of God, and like that supremely over-heralded 2002 film, it utilizes its slum locale not for inquisitive sociological inquiry but blah melodrama and stereotypical gangster histrionics. Morelli ostensibly wants to place greater emphasis on his characters than Meirellas did, meaning…
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The Messengers (2007): C-
What’s the point of making a horror film if you can’t even manage a single scare or unsettling moment? That’s the only intriguing topic of conversation prompted by The Messengers, the derivative-at-every-turn English-language debut of The Pang Brothers (Bangkok Dangerous, The Eye). Thanks to older daughter Jess’ (Kristen Stewart) unspecified bad behavior, a father (Dylan…
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Seven Day Timeout
I’ll be taking a brief hiatus from my regular critic duties next week to – gasp! – actually enjoy a family vacation. Consequently, to tide loyal readers over until my return, here’s a new collection of review links, including one for my quite positive write-up of David Mamet’s upcoming Redbelt. Now: The Spiderwick Chronicles (Slant…
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The Duchess of Langeais (2007): C+
According to an interview included in the film’s press notes, 79-year-old Jacques Rivette sought a visual style for The Duchess of Langeais (aka Don’t Touch the Axe) that mirrored the prose style of his source material, a novella by Andre Balzac. Not being a specialist on the acclaimed realist author, I can’t assess whether this…
