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Idiocracy (2006): B-
Neither the train wreck Twentieth-Century Fox believed it to be when the studio unceremoniously dumped it onto DVD after a miniscule theatrical release, nor the disrespected and misunderstood masterpiece many had hoped, Mike Judge’s Idiocracy instead turns out to be simply an intermittently amusing – and sometimes lazy – satire that plays like a so-so…
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Basket Case (1982): B
Set in seedy, pre-Disneyfication early-‘80s Manhattan, Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case is the kind of film a young Martin Scorsese or Abel Ferrara might have made had they been interested in tales about murderous one-foot-tall monsters with a thing for hookers’ panties. Fresh-faced Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) moves from upstate New York to a squalid…
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All the King’s Men (1949): B-
Broderick Crawford nabbed an Oscar for his portrayal of Huey Long-ish politico Willie Stark in All the King’s Men, and while his full-bodied performance still holds up nearly six decades later, the rest of Robert Rossen’s Best Picture winner (based on Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) has lost a good deal of its fierce…
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The Globes Ain’t Saving America…
Having lost all interest in awards shows like the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards, I can’t muster the energy to repeat last year’s running diaries. So instead, here’s a video clip for those who read my previous Globes post. It also doubles as a clue to what I really watched tonight.
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Two Quick Links
As I spent the early part of this past week working on a feature for SOMA magazine‘s upcoming film issue, and the latter part of the week working on a few reviews for Slant magazine that won’t be published until later this weekend, this Friday’s link dump is brief, consisting of only one positive and…
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The Devil Wears Prada (2006): C
The Devil Wears Prada may name-check trendy Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo, but its tale of publishing industry bitchery and one naif’s dawning realization that personal integrity is more important than professional success is fashioned on countless, better corporate ladder-related women’s pictures. Tailored to appeal to those who enjoy gawking at designer clothes and accessories…
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Calvaire (2004): C
Belgian filmmaker Fabrice Du Welz proves he’s both a devoted student of the horror genre and uninterested in bringing anything new to it with Calvaire (“The Ordeal”), the latest torture-obsessed film to thrust a middle-class innocent into a backwoods heart-of-darkness. As with Alejandro Aja’s High Tension, Welz’s directorial debut is an aesthetically polished but soulless…
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Eaten Alive (1977): C+
Dismissed and forgotten almost immediately upon its theatrical release, Eaten Alive predictably suffered from being Tobe Hooper’s follow-up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Thirty years later, however, that fate seems the product not just of unfair expectations but also of an audience unwillingness to accept its aggressively abstract argument in favor of nihilism. “My name…
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January Doldrums
The new year is upon us, meaning it’s time to suffer through another January filled with cinematic junk the studios don’t believe in. As the below reviews confirm (with the exception of Abduction), their lack of faith is more than justified. Later This Month: Smokin’ Aces (Slant magazine) Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story (Slant magazine)…
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SOMA Dystopia
For my inaugural contribution to SOMA magazine, I’ve written a review/feature on Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, which may not have much depth as a political allegory about our current terrorism-infested world, but which gets by on the strength of its blistering, exhilarating formal brilliance. Unfortunately, as of now the piece isn’t online, so I’ll…
