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Go Go Tales (2007): B+
With Go Go Tales, it’s once again Abel Ferrara’s party, and he’ll indulge in boisterous craziness if he wants to. A loving ode to a bygone Manhattan and an affectionate affirmation of outcast solidarity – as well as an allegory for its creator’s career – Ferrara’s latest charts one crazy night at Ray Ruby’s Paradise,…
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October Onslaught
As the six new site-specific reviews posted below attest, I’ve been insanely busy as of late. Nonetheless, here’s a new, belated link dump to kick off the week… NYFF: Flight of the Red Balloon (Slant magazine) Blade Runner: The Final Cut (Slant magazine) The Axe in the Attic (Slant magazine) Out Now: The Game Plan…
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Silent Light (2007): C
Carlos Reygadas (Japón, Battle in Heaven) mars his heretofore spotless track record with Silent Light (Stellet Licht), a film indebted to Carlos Dreyer’s Ordet that’s also the near-epitome of art-cinema pretentiousness. Reygadas not only drains any trace of sensuality and carnal heat – as well as any cultural/political shadings – from his latest, he also…
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Married Life (2007): C+
Married Life, Ira Sachs’ follow-up to Forty Shades of Blue, is a ‘40s period piece that aims to deliver Douglas Sirk-style melodramatic pleasures while also thoughtfully probing its titular institution. These two goals aren’t necessarily at odds, but each seems to somewhat counteract the other’s effectiveness, as Sachs plays his story – about the romantic…
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A Girl Cut in Two (2007): C
Claude Chabrol’s familiar critique of the bourgeoisie is dispiritingly lethargic and simple in A Girl Cut in Two, a rambling character study-cum-thriller in which Ludivine Sagnier’s TV weather woman bounces between an older, married writer (François Berléand) and a younger, spoiled rich kid (Benoît Magimel). An opening sequence in which red visual tinting and opera…
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Fados (2007): B+
Music and memory are intertwined in Fados, Carlos Saura’s documentary about Portugal’s fado tradition. Through a diversity of song and dance performances, the act of remembering or returning to a (specific, or unidentified) past is conveyed both lyrically and visually, with the director projecting archival clips of revolutions or still photos of famous artists onto…
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Troll 2 (1990): D-
Only a truly awful movie could make Troll look like a horror masterpiece, and let there be no doubt, Troll 2 is that movie. It’s rare to find a film with such an ignominious reputation actually living up to the hype, but it’s even more stunning to discover that this “sequel” – quotation marks necessary…
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Troll (1986): C-
Where to begin with a film like Troll? With Michael Moriarty spastically shaking his thang to New Wave music? With the sight of a virtually nude Julia Louis-Dreyfus dancing around a foliage-infested apartment like a giggling pixie? Or with the fact that the story’s protagonist is named Harry Potter (Noah Hathaway), and he’s charged with…
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The Art of Repression
My latest IFC News feature takes a look at Ang Lee, whose career – as the article’s title expresses – is fixated on the repression of desire, and whose above-average Lust, Caution opens this week. Ang Lee: The Master of Repression (IFC News)
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Epic Week
Press screenings for the New York Film Festival began last week, meaning my life is now busy as all get-out. Still, the past few days were made bearable by the fact that I managed to see one great film (Assassination of Jesse James), as well as a couple (Chuck, Kingdom) that were so bad, they…
