eric brochu

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• Zombie Lake (1981) 0.5/5

  2010-10-07 08:35

  

  2010-10-07
  0.3

• Zodiac (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-03-03 01:58

  

  A painstakingly detailed masterpiece about the painstaking detailed assembly of a murder case. This is truly a film that lives up to its own obsessive inspiration -- the true story of the tracking of the Zodiac serial killer by professional and amateur sleuths. I've admired David Fincher ever since Seven, but here he puts the flashy tricks away and sets himself up as heir to Hitchcock.

  2007-03-03
  0.3

• Zero Effect (1998) 4/5

  2007-05-28 10:49

  

  This character study/detective film is so clever and so thoroughly enjoyable, it should really be better known. It has a twisty film noir plot, great location shooting in Portland, Oregon, and Ben Stiller back when he could be funny without making the veins in his forehead pop out from the effort. But the real reason to see it is Bill Pullman as Daryl Zero, kind of a mixture of Sherlock Holmes and Howard Hughes: superemely confident as a detective, but so socially inept that he refuses to ever meet clients and locks himself in his apartment living on diet of tuna, Tab and amphetemines. Pullman gives Zero a social ineptness that starts out hilarious and then slowly adds levels of pain and poignancy as his latest case pulls him further and further out of his safety zone.

  2007-05-28
  0.3

• Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) 4/5

  2008-11-14 20:22

  

  2008-11-14
  0.3

• Winter's Bone (2010) 4/5

  2010-08-07 23:17

  

  2010-08-07
  0.3

• Willard (2003) 3/5

  2006-07-28 01:56

  

  Crispin Glover plays a weirdo. Surprise! Though as always, he does it really, really well. This time, he befriends, controls and is betrayed by an army of intelligent, cat-eating rats. There's a tacked-on human love interest, but the real relationship is Glover and his rats.

  2006-07-28
  0.3

• Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) 3/5

  2008-06-15 22:02

  

  2008-06-15
  0.3

• Wendy and Lucy (2008) 4.5/5

  2009-06-21 18:01

  

  En route to Alaska, a nearly-destitute Michelle Williams has her car break down in small-town Oregon, and then loses her dog. There are no quirky townspeople or saccharine melodrama or grand statements, just one person in one place in one situation, but the story is so well-told, I was completely engrossed from the opening scene to the credits.

  2009-06-21
  0.3

• Watchmen (2009) 3.5/5

  2009-03-15 22:12

  

  2009-03-15
  0.3

• WALL-E (2008) 4.5/5

  2008-07-02 23:12

  

  2008-07-02
  0.3

• Volver (2006) 4/5

  2009-06-06 20:34

  

  In this campy (but heartfelt) melodrama of well-meaning mother-daughter murder teams and ghosts working as assistant hairdressers, the thing I found most implausible is that someone that looks like Penelope Cruz could ever be dirt poor or single. But that's probably missing the point. I've come to the conclusion that I probably lack the sensitivity to ever fully get caught up in Pedro Almodovar's stories of romantic Spanish poverty, but I'm enough of a film geek to totally enjoy his best work, such as this.

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Vanishing Point (1971) 4/5

  2009-03-15 21:50

  

  It's kind of hard to talk about this movie without comparing it to it's arty, existential road-movie doppelganger, Two-Lane Blacktop. So I will do just that, and say that TLB does the existentialism better, but this one has a lot more action. They're both great movies, but this isn't the one that sticks with me.

  2009-03-15
  0.3

• Valhalla Rising (2009) 3.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:29

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• Up in the Air (2009) 3.5/5

  2009-12-26 22:03

  

  How good is George Clooney in this movie? Well, he plays an ultra-successful professional hatchet man who's just looking for someone who can look past his extraordinary wealth, status and good looks to accept him for the borderline-sociopathic asshole he is -- and he's still totally sympathetic. Dammit.

  2009-12-26
  0.3

• Up (2009) 4/5

  2009-06-06 21:40

  

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Unforgiven (1992) 5/5

  2007-09-01 17:10

  

  This movie amazes me every time I see it. It's not only a devastating critique of the whole Western mythos, but a meditation on violence, morality and filmmaking. After seeing this movie, it's pretty hard to ever again take seriously any movie about the righteous good-guy bloodlessly blowing away a bunch of bad men.

  2007-09-01
  0.3

• Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) 5/5

  2008-10-23 23:11

  

  2008-10-23
  0.3

• True Grit (2010) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:29

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• Tropic Thunder (2008) 3/5

  2008-09-02 18:28

  

  Not a great movie, but the steady hand of director Ben Stiller manages to compensate for the grating, unfunny un-performance of star Ben Stiller.

  2008-09-02
  0.3

• Troll 2 (1990) 1/5

  2009-04-29 11:06

  

  2009-04-29
  0.3

• Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005) 4.5/5

  2007-08-19 10:51

  

  I enjoyed this movie immensely. The first half is kind of a comedic free-fall, jumping from hilarious scenes of a fictional film adaptation of the 18th century novel, to a portrayal of the filming of those scenes, to a behind-the-scenes dramedy about the actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing versions of themselves. Confusing? Yes, but funny as hell, too. The second half settles down behind the scenes of the production, but repeatedly drifts away from the movie and the book, only to occasionally veer back into them. Which, I gather, is how the book works (I read the first hundred or so pages once when I was doing my BA, and gave up). In the hands of lesser talents, this approach could be insufferably pretentious, but whatever you might think of writer/director Michael Winterbottom, he's not a lesser talent.

  2007-08-19
  0.3

• Triad Election (2006) 3/5

  2008-08-24 20:15

  

  2008-08-24
  0.3

• Transformers (2007) 1.5/5

  2008-03-29 13:39

  

  2008-03-29
  0.3

• Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006) 3.5/5

  2006-10-28 11:50

  

  Simulataneously looks much more expensive than the TV series, and still very, very cheap (which is a good thing). I wish they'd done more than just made an episode of the series with a few awkwardly-inserted T

  2006-10-28
  0.3

• Toy Story 3 (2010) 4/5

  2010-08-07 23:11

  

  The Incredibles > WALL·E > Ratatouille > Toy Story > Finding Nemo > Toy Story 3 > Up > Monsters Inc > Toy Story 2 > Bug’s Life > Cars

  2010-08-07
  0.3

• Top Secret! (1984) 4/5

  2008-07-12 16:53

  

  2008-07-12
  0.3

• Top Gun (1986) 4/5

  2007-06-03 14:01

  

  The best movie ever about Tom Cruise coming to terms with his homosexuality.

  2007-06-03
  0.3

• Tony Takitani (2004) 3.5/5

  2007-06-23 00:11

  

  I really shouldn't like this movie. It's an adaptation of a short story that's so literal, most of the text of the story is simply recited by an omniscient narrator. In fact, it's really just a version of the story, illustrated in four dimensions. And yet, it won me over. The story is by Haruki Murakami, probably my favourite writer, and the muted, desaturated look of the film perfectly captures the story's tone of loss and regret.

  2007-06-23
  0.3

• Three Extremes (2004) 3/5

  2006-10-13 22:45

  

  Three Extremes. A trio of short indie art-house Asian horror/drama films from Fruit Chan, Park Chan-Wook and Miike Takashi. The latter two are among my favorite directors (I haven't seen any of Fruit Chan's films), but of the three only Takashi's nightmarish series of beautiful and horrible images is really successful. Fruit Chan's benefits from good performances and Christopher Doyle cinematography, but doesn't have anywhere to go from its premise, and Chan-wook Park's just rather does suck.

  2006-10-13
  0.3

• Three Days of the Condor (1975) 3/5

  2007-08-19 09:48

  

  It was interesting to see this classic spy paranoia conspiracy thriller immediately after watching The Bourne Ultimatum. Both have CIA agents on the run from ruthless rogues branches of their own agency, and incriminating documents as the McGuffin. Both are very stylish and high-tech (Condor's CIA buildings are full of teletypes, blinkenlights computers and awesome burnt orange wallpaper). But whereas Bourne's Matt Damon is the baddest of the bad, looking for redemption, or at least answers, Condor's Robert Redford is a naive analyst who is shocked to learn that the CIA might be up to no good, and, if anything, would like nothing more that to unlearn it. And in another sign of the times, Condor has a completely superfluous (and borderline misogynistic) love story via the miscast Faye Dunaway.

  2007-08-19
  0.3

• This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) 1/5

  2007-07-06 09:48

  

  How can a film with its head stuck so far up its own ass find the room to spend 94 minutes sucking Hollywood's dick? This film is an "expose" of the US MPAA ratings board as made by Kirby Dick, who clearly sees himself as a kind of Hollywood Hipster Asshole version of Michael Moore. Unfortunately, while he's as smug and hypocritical as Moore, he's nowhere near as talented a filmmaker, and all his banner waving about artistic freedom and censorship (the word is repeated roughly 800 times despite the fact the board doesn't censor movies) just comes off as the whiniest type of agitprop. A board member, we are told "lives in this multi-million dollar house" and is a Republican -- this, with a complete lack of irony, following a denunciation of the Hollywood blacklisting of the 1950s. But even a hack like Kirby Dick knows that you can't have a doc with just talking heads, so he hires a team of private investigators to follow ratings board members and go through their garbage. Because apparently, sometimes artistic freedom requires stalking people to teach them a lesson -- certainly, it's no worse than what the MPAA does. Oh, wait: it is. You fucking asshole.

  2007-07-06
  0.3

• There Will Be Blood (2007) 3.5/5

  2008-01-13 16:41

  

  The first 20 minutes are as good as any ever put to film, and the last 20 are jaw-droppingly bad. In-between, we get the actual movie, a complex character study layered with beautiful cinematography and music. I seem to be in a minority, but I was ultimately a bit disappointed. It's fascinating seeing all the pieces falling into place, but they're all there half-way through, and then all that's left is to watch and wait for the inevitable.

  2008-01-13
  0.3

• The Wrestler (2008) 4/5

  2009-01-21 13:36

  

  The story is disappointingly unimaginative, but the acting and direction more than compensate. Mickey Rourke is the titular over-the-hill professional wrestler, but within the first two minutes you forget you're watching Rourke -- it's just Randy "The Ram" up there on screen, living the life it must have taken decades to get to. An absolutely incredible performance.

  2009-01-21
  0.3

• The Wrestler (2008) 4/5

  0000-00-00 00:00

  

  The story is disappointingly unimaginative, but the acting and direction more than compensate. Mickey Rourke is the titular over-the-hill professional wrestler, but within the first two minutes you forget you're watching Rourke -- it's just Randy "The Ram" up there on screen, living the life it must have taken decades to get to. An absolutely incredible performance.

  0000-00-00
  0.3

• The White Ribbon (2009) 4/5

  2010-02-02 12:23

  

  In a small, pre-WWI German town, repression, cruelty and hopelessness grip the townsfolk like a vise, and mysterious violence starts to erupt among the generation that would grow up to create National Socialism. Knowing Michael Haneke's previous films, I was expecting something bombastic. While there's definitely a take-home message, what I found fascinating was the dissection of how the groundwork for such an ideology is laid.

  2010-02-02
  0.3

• The Towering Inferno (1974) 3/5

  2007-02-26 13:23

  

  Instead of watching the Oscars, Ty, Abhi and I watched this. It's just as bloated and stupid, but a lot more fun. Plus, it was nominated for 8 Oscars (including Best Picture) and won 3, so obviously it represents the best that Hollywood had to offer, right? Also, is it just me, or did Hollywood really, really hate women in the 70s? All they do here is run around shrieking and falling off the building and endangering the brave men trying to rescue them.

  2007-02-26
  0.3

• The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) 3.5/5

  2008-04-22 21:57

  

  2008-04-22
  0.3

• The Thing (1982) 4/5

  2008-03-16 11:30

  

  2008-03-16
  0.3

• The Thin Red Line (1998) 4.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:28

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• The Simpsons Movie (2007) 3.5/5

  2007-08-19 10:12

  

  I do in all seriousness believe that the first eight or so seasons of The Simpsons comprise not only the greatest accomplishment in the history of television, but may well be the single greatest work of art of the twentieth century. And then it went downhill and I stopped watching. The movie is totally entertaining, but it never reaches the heights of the TV show at its best. I think this is because it can't ever be as fresh: The Simpsons is a satire on everyday life, but after a few hundred episodes, there can't be all that many targets left, and completely stepping away from the series (at least for the first movie) isn't an option. So all that really leaves is to go big, which is less satisfying. But damn if it ain't funny.

  2007-08-19
  0.3

• The Science of Sleep (2006) 4/5

  2006-09-28 14:16

  

  The best movie I've seen since The Descent. But it's not much like The Descent. It's like Gondry's previous film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but even moreso, since it's more persional and more indulgent.

  2006-09-28
  0.3

• The Queen (2006) 3.5/5

  2007-11-04 22:20

  

  I find the royal family fascinating in the same way I find the Catholic Church fascinating -- I may not believe in or even personally approve of them, but they've been around a whole lot longer than me and I have to give them props. This movie hones in on Elizabeth II with pinpoint accuracy, laying bare her strengths and weaknesses mostly in a single, one week period during and after the death of Princess Diana. And it is a really engaging portrayal. The movie's weakness, though is that the rest of the players (including Princes Philip and Charles, and especially Tony Blair) really only exist as lenses for us to see the Queen through, which makes the word of the film seem a bit less like the one she lives in. And Helen Mirren's portrayal is good enough to make you totally forget Scott Thompson's. While the movie's playing, at least.

  2007-11-04
  0.3

• The Prestige (2006) 3.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:25

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• The Prestige (2006) 3/5

  2006-11-18 14:34

  

  A clever, slick and enjoyable way to kill a couple of hours. Nowhere near deserving all the hype it's getting, though I felt that way about Chistopher Nolan's Memento and Batman Begins, too.

  2006-11-18
  0.3

• The Pianist (2002) 3.5/5

  2006-08-07 23:40

  

  Yes, I'm rating this moving testament to survivors of the holocaust the same as Miami Vice and lower than the zombie rom-com and than the movie with the donkey sex. And still I contend it is perfectly reasonable to rank all movies along a single line that goes from Manos: The Hands of Fate to Seven Samurai.

  2006-08-07
  0.3

• The Orphanage (2007) 3.5/5

  2009-03-15 21:20

  

  A really elegant and unnerving horror film from Spain. Instead of shocks and gore (which I always find more funny than scary), it tries to scare you by creating characters you care about and putting them into creepier and creepier situations. Not every scene worked for me, but the ones that did were as effective as any I've seen in a horror movie.

  2009-03-15
  0.3

• The New World (2005) 4.5/5

  2006-11-27 01:20

  

  Terrence Malick made hsi first feature in 1978, and this is only the third since then. But like Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, I think it's brilliant: beautiful and poetic and joyful and sad and damn near transcendent.

  2006-11-27
  0.3

• The Mist (2007) 3.5/5

  2007-12-07 14:26

  

  2007-12-07
  0.3

• The Man from Snowy River (1982) 3/5

  2007-05-08 11:56

  

  As far as Australian Westerns go, this is no The Proposition. It's a sweet, cheesy romance about a boy, a girl and a horse, with some breathtaking shots of wild horses running through the mountains of Victoria.

  2007-05-08
  0.3

• The Lookout (2007) 4/5

  2008-02-16 20:50

  

  A brilliant character study, disguised as a gimmicky heist film. The hook is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt's memory-impaired bank janitor becomes entangled in the planning of a bank robbery. But the film is much more interested in seeing this former star athlete, whose mind, body and self-worth have been ripped apart by a car accident, pull himself back together, and realizing that simply living day-to-day is not enough. And that part is fantastic.

  2008-02-16
  0.3

• The Long Riders (1980) 4/5

  2007-09-22 21:11

  

  This Walter Hill-directed retelling of the James-Younger gang is not quite a masterpiece, but it is a really, really enjoyable piece of late-1970s violent naturalism. By 1980 the somewhat naive romaticism of Bonny and Clyde and The Wild Bunch was long gone, but the deconstruction of Unforgiven was still far away. Instead, we get an odd mixture of the lyricism of the 1970s and the precise workmanship,of the 1980s, punctuated by brilliant Walter Hill action scenes.

  2007-09-22
  0.3

• The Lives of Others (2007) 3.5/5

  2009-04-05 21:50

  

  I recall this film, about a 1980s Stasi agent and the writer he is assigned to surveil, was praised to the heavens when it came out, but I wonder if anybody is still championing it now. The problem I had is that there are some great intellectual ideas here, and a great performance by Ulrich Mühe, but the filmmaking is so heavy-handed and ponderous it feels like the life is being squeezed out of it. Not that it's a bad film overall, and I *do* see why it was so praised, but sometimes I think the Tasteful Depiction of Important Ideas has spelled the death of European cinema.

  2009-04-05
  0.3

• The Limey (1999) 3.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:26

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• The King of Kong (2007) 4/5

  2008-04-22 21:57

  

  2008-04-22
  0.3

• The Jerk (1979) 3/5

  2008-07-11 17:32

  

  2008-07-11
  0.3

• The Intruder (1962) 3.5/5

  2007-09-23 23:09

  

  How fucking cool is William Shatner? Even before Star Trek, in his Roger Corman days, he was the coolest kid in school. In this obvious labour of love for Shatner and Corman, the Man plays a charismatic and manipulative, but oddly naive, "social worker" villain, who incites a Southern town against school integration. Not only is this one of the best Corman movies I've seen, it's one of Shatner's best. You can see here how his career would have progressed if it hadn't been for Trek: a comfortable place as a brooding, good-looking character actor, combined with the occasional leading-man role in small-but-respectable fare. Instead, he got cast as Kirk, and his career became something altogether different.

  2007-09-23
  0.3

• The Hurt Locker (2009) 4.5/5

  2009-08-04 22:03

  

  2009-08-04
  0.3

• The Host (2006) 3.5/5

  2007-04-02 12:44

  

  A fun take on the monster movie, complete with incompetent authorities, heroic children, and a beastie that just won't stay dead. But done up Korean-style. Yummy.

  2007-04-02
  0.3

• The Hangover (2009) 3.5/5

  2009-12-26 16:52

  

  2009-12-26
  0.3

• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) 5/5

  2007-03-12 12:03

  

  It turns out my roommate Florence had never seen this masterpiece. So naturally, we had to put everything on hold and watch it. I don't think there's ever been a movie with so many incredible scenes, finishing off with three fantastic set pieces in a row -- Tuco's run through the graveyard, the three-way duel, and the hanging -- any one of which would be a scene for the ages, but together just leaves you breathless and grateful that such films exist (well, it has that effect on me, at least).

  2007-03-12
  0.3

• The Girl from Monday (2005) 1/5

  2006-11-08 13:31

  

  Ever since I saw Trust (still one of my top five films of all time) over ten years ago, I've eagerly followed Hal Hartley's career. But No Such Thing felt like Hal Hartley-lite, and this just feels like the work of an imposter. It has the Hartley tropes, but they're mushy, flavorless and decidedly lacking in nutritional value. And where No Such Thing lifted from La belle et la bête, this one is so derivative of The Man Who Fell to Earth that I just felt kind of embarassed for both Hartley and Nick Roeg.

  2006-11-08
  0.3

• The Getaway (1972) 3/5

  2009-04-26 20:30

  

  An entertaining enough chase movie, and Steve McQueen is always great at being Steve McQueen, but even with Walter Hill and Sam Peckinpah behind the camera, this seems too safe, too studio, too out-of-touch. After seeing the period's thoughtful, existential road movies, like Vanishing Point, Point Blank and the incredible Two-Lane Blacktop, this slick, happy-ending actioner feels all the more like a missed opportunity.

  2009-04-26
  0.3

• The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) 4.5/5

  2010-10-24 23:21

  

  The 1970s New Hollywood put out so many great films that even after you've seen all the famous classics, there are still dozens of lesser-known but totally brilliant ones to track down. Take, for instance, this Robert Mitchum gem. It may not be totally obscure, but until they recently started raving about it on Filmspotting, it never occurred to me to check it out. Am I ever glad I did. The story of an over-the-hill low-level Boston gangster with his fingers in too many pies, it's by turns warm and bleak, comic and tragic, and it may be my favourite Mitchum performance of all time, which is saying a lot.

  2010-10-24
  0.3

• The Fountain (2006) 4/5

  2006-12-07 23:42

  

  I'm not quite sure how to rate this, because I found it moving and beautiful and original, but I don't think it's completely successful. It wanted to fill me with awe, but instead, it just made me admire it for even trying. But still, I enjoyed it immensely, and I'll definitely be watching it again on DVD. Maybe then, I'll be able to reconcile my conflicted reactions.

  2006-12-07
  0.3

• The Descent (2005) 4.5/5

  2006-09-20 11:04

  

  Fantastic. Rave blog post coming soonish.

  2006-09-20
  0.3

• The Departed (2006) 4.5/5

  2006-10-19 11:01

  

  It's great to have Scorcese back after his last couple of experiments with middlebrow Oscar bait. Brilliant film. If I have one complaint it's with Jack Nicholson's cartoon villain. But otherwise, excellent performances from everyone involved, and a hell of a lot easier to follow than the original Infernal Affairs.

  2006-10-19
  0.3

• The Dark Knight (2008) 4.5/5

  2008-07-25 09:36

  

  2008-07-25
  0.3

• The Darjeeling Limited (2007) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• The Darjeeling Limited (2007) 3.5/5

  2007-10-16 10:55

  

  I really wanted to like this movie more, and maybe I will, on second viewing. It's a sad, funny, impeccably-crafted and beautifully shot story of three brothers travelling across India, and certainly very Wes Andersony. But walking out of the theater, I felt vaguely dissatisfied. In each Wes Anderson movie, the characters are richer, colder and less likeable, and here, there just wasn't enough left for me to hold on to. It's really not a bad movie, but it didn't make me walk out with the feeling of gratitude I had when I saw Anderson's previous films.

  2007-10-16
  0.3

• The Crazies (1973) 2/5

  2008-05-07 19:10

  

  2008-05-07
  0.3

• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 4.5/5

  2010-02-07 17:38

  

  Awesome movie, but what does the title mean? Shouldn't the second one, where Bourne threatens his former masters, be the ultimatum, and this one, where he kicks their collective asses, be the supremacy? It's a good thing it has some of the best action and suspense set pieces of all time to distract me from this, or I might get annoyed.

  2010-02-07
  0.3

• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 4/5

  2007-08-17 09:59

  

  A tight, well-made action film that is sure to make tons of money without insulting your intelligence (aside from asking us to accept blank-faced Julia Stiles as a senior CIA operative). Was that really so hard, Hollywood?

  2007-08-17
  0.3

• The Bourne Supremacy (2004) 3.5/5

  2010-02-03 12:39

  

  The weakest of the Bourne trilogy, though I still like it more than the best James Bond movie. For one thing, there's actual suspense -- the conclusion doesn't feel preordained and Matt Damon's grim efficiency reminds us that the stakes are serious, a sharp contrast to Bond's glib sociopathy. It also takes place in something closer to the real world than the Bond films, though it's increasingly hard to buy the consequence-free international carnage being wrought by US interests.

  2010-02-03
  0.3

• The Bourne Identity (2002) 4/5

  2010-02-03 12:31

  

  I picked up the Bourne trilogy on sale and I've been watching them in one-hour chunks before bed. The first one is definitely the most conventional, though it still has a lot of grit and a distinctive style, not to mention some pretty awesome stunt work.

  2010-02-03
  0.3

• The Boondock Saints (1999) 2.5/5

  2007-11-09 22:43

  

  A movie that feels like somebody gave an ambitious -- but not terribly original -- film student a few million dollars. There is exactly one good thing about this movie -- Willem Dafoe's charismatic turn as a brilliant but utterly eccentric FBI agent. The rest... at best, it's a second-rate Tarantino rip-off. At worst, a second-rate Punisher rip-off. Never unwatchable, but rarely compelling.

  2007-11-09
  0.3

• The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) 1.5/5

  2008-01-08 19:58

  

  I don't think there's a single performance or scene that rings true, but by God, they sure want to impress you with how much it all cost. I recently read the terrific book The Devil's Candy, about the making of this film, so I kind of had to see it, but it really is a slog.

  2008-01-08
  0.3

• The Black Dahlia (2006) 1.5/5

  2007-02-11 01:43

  

  A runaway bulldozer of a movie, colliding into campy performances and sending plot points flying right out of the film. The the third act is a head-on collision with crazy town, and everything turns out to somehow be the fault of some incidental characters we know and care nothing about. For a few brief moments, it's so stupid and over-the-top it's better than good. But mostly, it's just bad.

  2007-02-11
  0.3

• The Big Heat (1953) 3/5

  2008-12-21 17:29

  

  Fritz Lang-directed gangster movie with a very young Lee Marvin as a cold-blooded thug. Glenn Ford plays an honest but vengeance-minded cop who is determined to take down the mob after they kill his beloved wife. The film is slick, violent, and so fast-moving that entire gunfights are glossed over with a single line of dialogue -- the better to propel the main story along. However, it's pretty standard for the genre: solid, but never groundbreaking.

  2008-12-21
  0.3

• The Beach (2000/I) 1.5/5

  2006-10-15 23:42

  

  Actually, I spent most of the movie's runtime getting caught up on xkcd, so I'll let the IMDB's Titanic_Fanatic25 sum it up thusly: "whats your favorite scene of the beach?? mine is when him && Françoise are in the waterr && start making outt. veryy hot. he looks extremely good in that movie. [[especially in that part]] she is one lucky chick, dudee." Yes, yes, I'm a horrible snob.

  2006-10-15
  0.3

• The Awful Truth (1937) 4/5

  2006-11-09 22:07

  

  You know how some nights, you just want to lie on the sofa with a bag of leftover Halloween candy, a bottle of chilled vodka and an old Cary Grant comedy? This is the old Cary Grant comedy you want to be watching.

  2006-11-09
  0.3

• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford... 3.5/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• The Addams Family (1991) 2/5

  2007-08-23 11:06

  

  The 1960s TV version of the Addams family is my ideal of the family unit: utterly unconcerned with society's expectations and values, but completely accepting and loving. This invariably puts them at odds with the more traditional characters -- stifling, small-minded figures, concerned with appearances and threatened by the Addams' nonconformity. The movie however, takes a different approach. Here, the Addams family are the outsiders, and the audience is in the role of the normal people gawking at them. The family not only knows how odd they look, they revel in their weirdness. So, instead of being subversive, like the sitcom, it's a freakshow, albeit an affectionate one. On the plus side, though, Raul Julia and Angelica Huston are terrific as Gomez and Morticia, and Christina Ricci is perfectly cast as Wednesday (even though she's a very different Wednesday from the TV series).

  2007-08-23
  0.3

• The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) 3.5/5

  2008-01-27 23:10

  

  Kind of an unusual kung fu flick in that the big good vs evil conflict is given a back seat to a fairly earnest (if a bit cartoonish) look at the arduous training and intense commitment of the serious martial arts student. Also, the DVD has a commentary by RZA, which is novel, though I found it was best appreciated in small doses.

  2008-01-27
  0.3

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 5/5

  2006-08-20 01:34

  

  As close to perfection as this kind of movie will ever get.

  2006-08-20
  0.3

• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) 1.5/5

  2006-08-14 09:05

  

  What the hell was the line of reasoning that lead me to believe this movie wouldn't suck ass?

  2006-08-14
  0.3

• Talk to Her (2002) 3.5/5

  2010-10-07 08:29

  

  Like most Almodóvar movies, this one took a while to draw me in, but once I was in, I was hooked (I'm a sucker for soap-opera-y plot twists). However, one thing that does not cross cultures well is bullfighting. When a toreador character is trampled in the ring by a wounded and dying bull, my first response is most assuredly not "oh, what a tragedy!"

  2010-10-07
  0.3

• Tôkyô nagaremono (1966) 3/5

  2006-11-26 21:24

  

  Tokyo Drifter. A strange and stylish gangster pic from Japan, at the height of Euro-jazz chic. At times, it reminded me of Le Samourai, For a Fistful of Dollars or Point Blank, though without the gravity of the first, the rawness of the second, or the overwhelming coolness of the third.

  2006-11-26
  0.3

• Synecdoche, New York (2008) 4.5/5

  2008-11-18 10:44

  

  My glib analysis is that it's a meditation on mortality, narcissism and the inability of art to capture life -- three things that I think Kaufman sees as nearly identical. That's kind of a disservice to the movie, though. It's a lot deeper and more obscure than that. I think I'll need to read and think more about it, but right now, I'm definitely in the camp that says it's a kind of masterpiece of unlubricated mindf*ckery. (Though I saw it with Tyson and Gillian, with whom I usually agree, and they were much less impressed.)

  2008-11-18
  0.3

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) 3.5/5

  2007-12-25 23:59

  

  Just when I had given up on Tim Burton ever making another good film after Ed Wood, he has to go and show me up with this one -- beautifully dark, bloody, misanthropic, and, of course, it's a musical. It's not a great movie, mind you -- Burton is still clearly more interested in art direction than characterization -- but I enjoyed it hugely, even if it left me a bit unsatisfied by the end.

  2007-12-25
  0.3

• Superman Returns (2006) 2/5

  2006-07-29 09:53

  

  Superman is not a terribly interesting superhero, but did the whole movie really have to be so bland? A monosyllabic Superman rescues a complete non-entity Lois Lane and her mouth-breathing kid. Even Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor is dishwater-dull.

  2006-07-29
  0.3

• Superbad (2007) 4/5

  2007-09-01 17:05

  

  Hilariously raunchy, yet heartfelt film from the Judd Apatow circle, which seems to be in the process of single-handedly rewriting the rules of comedy filmmaking through sheer talent and force of will.

  2007-09-01
  0.3

• Sunshine (2007) 3/5

  2007-08-12 20:59

  

  I'm pretty torn on this film, about a group of astronauts on a mission to re-ignite the dying sun. The first two thirds ranges from good to terrific, with excellent performances, Danny Boyle's typical concern for how tightly-knit groups of people fall apart, and a truly amazing and terrifying spacewalk scene. But the last third is so weak, it can't help but leave a sour taste and make you think about how great it could have been.

  2007-08-12
  0.3

• Sunset Blvd. (1950) 5/5

  2007-09-28 14:33

  

  The cynicism of the film -- it's eagerness to look at the ugliness underneath Hollywood -- has gone, since 1950, from shocking to trite. But I think it's an incredible testament to the quality of the film and its performances that this barely registers. It's still a powerful and utterly modern film -- a black masterpiece of failure and disenchantment.

  2007-09-28
  0.3

• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) 4/5

  2007-11-25 23:43

  

  2007-11-25
  0.3

• Sukiyaki Western Django (2008) 2/5

  2009-06-06 20:51

  

  Prolific Japanese crazyman Takashi Miike's take on the spaghetti western mixes gunslingers and martial arts in a comic-book universe of ridiculous marksmanship and phonetically-spoken English, but ultimately doesn't amount to much. The problem is, I never felt Miike has any special affection for -- or understanding of -- the genre, and as a result, the film seems both wrongheaded and smug. Casting Quentin Tarantino as a gunslinger-sage doesn't help.

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Stranger Than Paradise (1984) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Stranger Than Fiction (2006) 4/5

  2007-06-15 23:31

  

  I recall seeing trailers for this movie and then... nothing. Until the last few weeks when a couple of different sites I read mentioned it favourably in passing. Very, very rarely -- like, once a decade -- I read a novel in which the characters seem so real that I can completely see them going about their lives and getting into situations the novel doesn't ever get to. This movie is about those characters. (Though the book that the movie is about actually seems kind of lame.)

  2007-06-15
  0.3

• Star Trek (2009) 3.5/5

  2009-05-23 23:35

  

  2009-05-23
  0.3

• Stander (2003) 4/5

  2007-08-02 20:46

  

  It's odd that Stander is so little-known, since it is a damn fine little movie. It's the true(ish) story of Andre Stander (Thomas Jane), an apartheid-era South African Detective Captain who became the country's most infamous bank robber. The movie plays up the hypocrisy of an honest man upholding the law in such a profoundly sick system, until Stander's crimes seem, if not just, than at least no less wrong than continuing as a police officer. Plus, it has a great soundtrack, awesome 1980s South African fashion, and some kick-ass action sequences.

  2007-08-02
  0.3

• Standard Operating Procedure (2008) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

List generated by WP Movie Ratings.