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House of Wax (2005): C
House of Wax argues that for every pair of twins, one is awful and one is good. When it comes to classic films and remakes, the same also usually holds true, a fact bolstered by this lousy Jaume Serra-directed reimagining of 1953’s Vincent Price chiller. Maintaining only the title and central conceit of its predecessor,…
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Visitor Q (2001): A-
No one does taboo-smashing, boundary-stretching outrageousness quite like Takashi Miike, and Visitor Q is the scandalous pinnacle of his extreme cinema canon. A family of degenerates is falling apart: TV reporter Kiyoshi (Kenichi Endo), interested in filming his whore daughter for a news program, has sex with her instead; his son Takuya (Jun Mutô), tormented…
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Oldboy (2005): C+
Like so many of its vengeance-driven genre brethren, Chan-wook Park’s stylish but slight Oldboy wants to have it both ways. The tale of a loudmouth named Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) who is imprisoned in a grimy hotel room prison for 15 years and, once released, is given five days to uncover the reason behind his…
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May Flowers?
May is in bloom, but of the five new releases reviewed below – four of which are in theaters right now, one of which (Mindhunters) will be out next week – only a couple avoid my withering criticism. The pretty good: Crash (Slant magazine) Double Dare (Slant magazine) Not So Much: Kingdom of Heaven (Slant…
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The Start of Summer
The summer movie season is upon us, and to kick things off, I’ve got a review of the new XXX, an upcoming Russian sci-fi/horror film called Night Watch, a fantastic Warner DVD for The Big Red One: The Reconstruction, and NY Press critic Matt Zoller Seitz’s impressive, distributor-less debut Home. XXX: State of the Union…
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) I never had any interest in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and music video vet Garth Jennings’ cinematic adaptation doesn’t make my indifference seem unjustified. Not that the film – about a schlep named Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, from the BBC’s The Office) who survives the…
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More Good Than Bad
It’s a rare post that has more positive than negative reviews. But surprisingly enough, most of these films are worth your time and money. This remake of 1978’s Fingers is one of the best films of the still-young year: The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Slant magazine) A well-done documentary on Enron: Enron: The Smartest…
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Birth (2004): D+
Ten years after her husband Sean’s death, Anna (Nicole Kidman) – who still hasn’t fully recovered from the loss – is preparing to remarry when a creepy, expressionless ten-year-old (Cameron Bright) appears on her doorstep claiming to be Sean. Anna is initially skeptical, but after mulling the idea over, she concludes that the kid (whose…
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Read My Lips (2001): A-
Despite an annoyingly dispensable subplot involving a parole officer and his missing wife, Jacques Audiard’s Read My Lips may be the finest thriller/romance hybrid of the new century. Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a partially deaf secretary detached – and who (via the removal of her hearing aid) willingly detaches herself from – the cruel social…
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Fingers (1978): A-
James Tobak’s Fingers has an only-in-the-movies premise – a debt collector for his small-time mobster father aspires to be a classical pianist – yet through sheer force of filmmaking will, the director and star Harvey Keitel turn this somewhat ridiculous plot into a penetrating portrait of tortured, impotent masculinity and the foolishness of attempting to…
