7 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“The Algerian”
“Why would a man like you help a woman like me?” says Lana (Candice Coke) to Ali (Ben Youcef) when he comes to her rescue after Lana’s abusive date punches her in public. It’s a baffling question, and not just because it is despairingly clichéd. The situation ...
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“Into the Grizzly Maze”
Not exactly terrible, at least as far as this sort of nature-spolitation schlock goes, Saw V director David Hackl’s Into the Grizzly Maze strands an overqualified cast in the Alaskan wilderness to work out their longstanding family grudges with a thousand-poun...
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“What Happened, Miss Simone?”
“What happened, Miss Simone? Specifically, what happened to your big eyes that quickly veil to hide the loneliness? To your voice, that has so little tenderness, yet overflows with your commitment to the battle of Life? What happened to you?” —Maya Angelou
Eu...
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“Elimination Game”
When Australian cult curio Turkey Shoot was released in 1982, the scope of the B movie wasn’t that far removed from marquee, studio pictures. And yet now here is that film remade in Jon Hewitt’s Elimination Game, landing somewhere between a low-budget Hunger G...
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“The Little Death”
In a scene deep into the second act of Australian comedy anthology The Little Death, a man and his girlfriend walk back to their car in a parking garage following a romantic dinner. They’re stopped by a pair of thugs who glower at them, take their wallets and ...
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“The Face of an Angel”
Humdrum thrillers are hardly in short supply in Hollywood. But when this kind of formulaic and intellectually vapid genre piece is directed by one of the most irreverent directors of the past two decades, the result is particularly disheartening—as is the case...
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“Manglehorn”
Specialness has always had a vaulted place in the movies. It’s a classic hero’s journey: the discovery that you are destined for greatness or, in the case of epic love stories, the quest for “the one.” It’s an alluringly romantic concept, but its real-world ap...
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“Burying the Ex”
Relationships are hard, especially when one partner is undead and wants to kill the other so that they’ll be together—forever. Burying the Ex is closer to Gremlins (1984) than The Howling (1981) when it comes to the Joe Dante scale of horror. In fact, other th...
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“Dope”
In Rick Famuyiwa’s urban coming-of-age film Dope, sincere nerd Malcolm (Shameik Moore) and his two best friends, 14% African jokester Jib (Tony Revolori) and sharp-witted lesbian Diggy (Kiersey Clemons), make references to all of the following: Rick Ross, Case...
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“Inside Out”
Pete Docter’s prior films are permeated with sadness, hovering on the periphery and threatening to swallow the stories whole. On the surface, Monsters, Inc. is a mix of high-octane action and screwball farce in a fantastical universe; just below, it builds up ...
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