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Project: Makeover
Bored with the old site design, I decided to give The Nick Schager Film Project a visual overhaul. I think it gives it a cleaner, more compact look, and hopefully is a bit easier to both read and navigate. And a big ol’ Thanks to Yancey and his friend Marie for helping with the new…
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Slacking Off
After last week’s mammoth ten-film post, I only have seven new online reviews for your reading pleasure. Sorry for being so lazy. But hey, at least this current batch of write-ups covers a few winners (including Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s stunning Sin City). This weekend’s two duds: Guess Who (Slant magazine) Miss Congeniality 2:…
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Shaolin Soccer (2001): A-
Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer takes a hackneyed sports story – down-and-out underdogs band together, learn the value of teamwork and sacrifice, and triumph – and turns it into a blitzkrieg of hilarious kung fu craziness. Shaolin disciple Sing (Chow) is desperate to find a way to promote his unique martial arts technique, and finds the…
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Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004): C+
Whereas 1995’s Ghost in the Shell artfully merged anime action with meditative philosophy, Mamoru Oshi’s 2004 sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is one long, tedious rumination on the blurring distinction between man and machines. Years after Major Kusanagi disappeared into the digital ether, her former cyborg partner Bato – now teamed with detective…
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Ghost in the Shell (1995): B
Mamoru Oshi’s landmark Ghost in the Shell – which superbly melds two-dimensional artwork and computer graphics – has rightly been decried for helping usher in an age of convoluted, spectacle-driven science fiction. Simply blasting the film’s surface-over-substance storytelling, however, is to shortchange its intriguing (if frequently pretentious) investigation into the nature of reality. Major Kusanagi…
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Miss Congeniality (2000): C-
According to Miss Congeniality, there’s nothing quite as liberating as a beauty pageant. Skipping this dreadful Sandra Bullock vehicle, however, has got to place a close second. Donald Petrie’s makeover-by-numbers comedy follows a tomboy cop (Bullock’s Gracie Hart) as she goes undercover at the Miss United States competition to ferret out a killer. Gracie is…
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Ten Spot
This post is proof positive that I’ve been working too hard, as I have TEN new reviews for this fine Friday evening. I’ve ordered the following eight theatrical films according to release date, with this weekend’s films at the top. 3/18/05: The Ring Two (Slant magazine) Ice Princess (Slant magazine) Steamboy (Slant magazine) Melinda and…
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Predator 2 (1990): C+
Half as taut and twice as dumb, Predator 2 is also exponentially funnier – and therefore more fun – than its Schwarzenegger-headlined original. In downtown L.A., renegade cop Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) is navigating a “war zone” in which drug gangs engage in armed conflict with the police, yet crazy Latino cokeheads and voodoo-practicing Jamaican…
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Akira (1988): B+
Katsuhiro Otomo’s cyber-punk anime classic Akira may be as muddled and ridiculous as it is exhilarating, but there’s no denying its still-astounding animation. Otomo, adapting his own 2,000+page manga, packs his convoluted film with too many extraneous side-stories involving anti-government protestors (angry about tax reform?), an army coup, and a romance between a rampaging superboy…
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March Madness
This week brings another batch of less-than-enthusiastic reviews for the latest Bruce Willis action film, a Penelope Cruz-headlined disaster, and a horrible South Africa-set drama starring Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche. Those in NYC, however, might want to take a chance on a low-budget science fiction film called After the Apocalypse that’ll be playing…
