9 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“Adult World”: The Millennial Plight
In a moment of crisis late in Adult World, 22-year-old protagonist Amy finds herself flinging books at her mentor and screaming: "I AM SPECIAL! I GOT GOOD GRADES! I SCORED IN THE 97TH PERCENTILE ON MY SAT’S, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!" The tantrum is silly in the ut...
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“Winter’s Tale”: Love’s Lost In The Cold
Carrying that seasonal feeling of freezing rain and dreary sunless days is unfortunately a movie meant to warm the hearts of its audience. Winter's Tale is a fantasy story out of time and a movie terribly constructed. I can only imagine it will make a great c...
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“Girl On a Bicycle” Has a Variety of Nationalities and a Lack of Wit
Hollywood has always had the tendency to rehash recipes that are proven to taste like magic to the audience. One can argue that such filmmaking is understandable when the financial stakes are high with big budget studio blockbusters, but it’s disheartening whe...
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‘Endless Love’ is an Interminable Mess
When I was 11 years old, I snuck into Brooke Shields’ R-rated 1981 feature, Endless Love. The commercials advertised a dirty movie. What I got was so boring and strained that, to save my afternoon, I snuck into another theater to see the gory werewolf movie, W...
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The “RoboCop” Remake Stays (Mostly) True to the Subversive Spirit of the Original
Few Hollywood films, past or present, are as savagely subversive as Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. Released in 1987 at the (then) height of commercial excess and populist blockbuster entertainment, the film’s outlandish one-word premise and over-the-top sci-fi gunp...
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“Drift” Is A Cold And Empty Venture
Details are left intentionally scarce in Benny Vandendriessche’s Drift, a wintry existential drama that follows an unnamed Belgian man’s own personal erosion and decay following personal tragedy. As an offering of “slow cinema,” Vandendriessche is no Nuri Bil...
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“The Pretty One”: An Original Film With an Unfortunate Identity Crisis
Practically coined as timeless catch phrases ready to be employed as self-loathing resources by the insecure and emotionally volatile youngsters of any given generation are questions and statements like “Who am I” “What am I doing here”” No one loves me” “Will...
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The Dark, Offbeat “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” Is A Pleasant Surprise Worth Seeking Out
Two ex-con lovers attempt to make a go at a normal life together. They settle in a cottage nestled deep in the wilderness of Quebec. They play house with each other and play nice with a parole officer. But despite their best efforts, a life of tranquility isn'...
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“The Last of the Unjust”: Mythology and Reality, Thoughtfully and Harrowingly Exposed
Culled from the very first interviews Claude Lanzmann conducted for his landmark Shoah, The Last of the Unjust focuses on one man in isolation, Benjamin Murmelstein, last of the Elders of the Jewish Council of the Theresiensadt ghetto near Vienna. The film pre...
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