eric brochu

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• Bamboozled (2000) 1/5

  2008-04-13 13:45

  

  2008-04-13
  0.3

• Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans (2009) 4/5

  2009-12-27 16:43

  

  With only the barest resemblance to the original Bad Lieutenant, this oddball blacker-than-black comedy about the "bliss of evil" might as well have been called Werner Herzog's Grand Theft Auto III, with Nic Cage channelling Klaus Kinsky impersonating Ray Liotta playing Tommy Vercetti.

  2009-12-27
  0.3

• Avatar (2009) 2.5/5

  2009-12-27 17:15

  

  Just finished Avatar. Graphics rocked, awesome level design, but the cut scenes were pretty tedious. Still, kept me involved until the fight with the final boss. Wait... what? We were watching a movie!?

  2009-12-27
  0.3

• Australia (2008) 2/5

  2009-01-11 04:24

  

  My girlfriend is Australian, which kind of obligates me to see this. It actually starts out not too bad, with a campy, over-the-top half hour of outback heroes and moustache-twirling villains. But then the earnestness sets in, and it becomes an endless slog which leaves you waiting for the Japanese to show up so that Darwin can get blowed up and the damn thing can finally end. (And for the record, Janelle liked it only slightly more than me, and only because she likes Nicole Kidman slightly more than me.)

  2009-01-11
  0.3

• Atonement (2007) 3.5/5

  2008-03-07 19:44

  

  2008-03-07
  0.3

• Apocalypto (2006) 3/5

  2008-01-20 19:39

  

  An odd film, in an odd key. Clearly conceived as a straight-up action-adventure yarn, and it delivers on that front with spectacular chase and fight scenes. But it is also clearly fascinated by its own setting -- the declining Mayan empire -- with long scenes of family life, the Mayan economy and the details of life in the jungle. Unfortunately, fascination doesn't equal insight, and in the end, we get an interesting, but off-balance actioner that can't quite hold up under the weight of its ambitions.

  2008-01-20
  0.3

• Animal Kingdom (2010) 3.5/5

  2010-08-29 10:58

  

  2010-08-29
  0.3

• American Gangster (2007) 3/5

  2008-05-07 19:10

  

  2008-05-07
  0.3

• All About Eve (1950) 4/5

  2008-02-16 20:25

  

  This film came out the same year as Sunset Blvd -- one of my very favourite films -- and deals with similar themes: the dark side of the Hollywood dream. And while both films have stellar writing, this one hasn't aged nearly as well -- in fact, it sometimes seems quaint by comparison. (A Hollywood where middle-aged actresses take all the plum roles from dewy ingenues? Not even in 1950.) But it does have a young, funny, and very lickable Marilyn Monroe in a supporting role. So there's that.

  2008-02-16
  0.3

• Adventureland (2009) 3.5/5

  2009-04-14 21:58

  

  2009-04-14
  0.3

• Addams Family Values (1993) 2.5/5

  2007-08-26 20:59

  

  The first Addams Family movie suffers for trying (and failing) to emulate the TV show. The second one mostly forgets the TV series altogether and goes for the macabre, black-humoured gags of the original New Yorker cartoons by Chas Addams. It's still not very good (the main storyline about a murderous nanny marrying Fester for his money is a bore), but there are a lot more dark chuckles to be had.

  2007-08-26
  0.3

• Ace in the Hole (1951) 4/5

  2009-02-15 13:35

  

  It amazes me just how modern Billy Wilder's movies seem. While most of Hollywood was mired in turgid melodramas, good-guy/bad-guy westerns and musicals -- few of which have aged very well -- Wilder's unsentimental dissection of sensationalist journalism is so sharp and nuanced that it could have served as the template of season 5 of The Wire. In fact, maybe it should have.

  2009-02-15
  0.3

• About Schmidt (2002) 2/5

  2007-09-09 10:53

  

  I have to say, I can enjoy slow, ponderous films quite a bit when they have something interesting to say. This one is mostly just boring, cliched, and, frankly pretty elitist -- this is a middle America populated entirely by one-dimensional characters we're supposed to chuckle knowingly at (look, he has a mullet! she talks in feel-good platitudes! heh). I guess it's good to see that Jack Nicholson can still not overact when he wants to, though here it just means he acts boring -- pretty much any decent actor his age could have done what he did with the role.

  2007-09-09
  0.3

• A Serious Man (2009) 4.5/5

  2009-10-25 15:54

  

  in 1967, a mild-mannered physics professor starts to find his life unravelling by inches, but instead of complaining or giving in, he tries to understand God's plan by visiting three rabbis. Funny, cruel and infused with a bleak Jewish existentialism, even for a Coen brothers movie, this film has a lot to unpack. I need to see it at least once more to really decide what I think of it, but right now, I think it's kind of brilliant.

  2009-10-25
  0.3

• A Colt is my Passport (1967) 3/5

  2008-08-04 19:21

  

  2008-08-04
  0.3

• A Better Tomorrow II (1987) 3/5

  2007-09-30 20:50

  

  Ramps up the action, the melodrama and the sheer preposterousness of the first movie, frequently to an overbearing degree. The action scenes are spectacular, but the rest of the film takes frequent trips into insane soap-opera WTF?-land. Still entertaining, but John Woo and Chow Yun Fat would go on to do a couple of films that were a whole lot better. "If you have any dignity, apologize to the rice RIGHT NOW!"

  2007-09-30
  0.3

• A Better Tomorrow (1986) 4.5/5

  2007-09-30 18:29

  

  The movie that launched the Hong Kong New Wave, and the international careers of John Woo and Chow Yun Fat. The stylish action scenes were so influential that they now seem a bit dated, and the melodrama is beyond over-the-top, as only John Woo can pull off. But it's impressive just how much skill and confidence there is on display in this film. As low-budget as it obviously is, it's obvious everybody knew they were onto something groundbreaking -- the cinema of the past twenty years would look very different without this film.

  2007-09-30
  0.3

• 3:10 to Yuma (2007) 4/5

  2007-09-21 19:29

  

  I'm not sure why, but I went into this expecting a revisionist art-house Western in the vein of Unforgiven or The Proposition. Instead, it's a genuine old-fashioned Serious Western -- a psychological morality tale about the price of virtue, with a mixture of stark violence and bleak heroism. With excellent performances from Christian Bale in the subtle role, and Russell Crowe in the flashy one.

  2007-09-21
  0.3

• 300 (2006) 3.5/5

  2007-03-16 11:00

  

  Entertainingly stupid action movie, in which slave-owning Spartans fight for liberty and freedom against a ninja-powered Persian army. The movie has a pretty obvious message about saving Western Civilization from the Persian hordes, but really, it's much too stupid to take seriously. I mean, think about it: if you're taking issue with the movie's politics, you're really complaining about Frank Miller's worldview. Frank Miller. It's like arguing about foreign policy with a particularly bloodthirsty twelve-year-old.

  2007-03-16
  0.3

• 28 Weeks Later (2007) 4/5

  2007-05-21 17:23

  

  28 Days Later has such a dramatic, powerful opening, that the rest of the movie seemed anticlimactic. This sequel has an opening that's almost as powerful, but doesn't sabotage the rest of the film. Despite a few "what was their plan?" type plot holes and impossibly good-looking zombie holocaust survivors, this is a smart, powerful horror-thriller that follows organically from the first movie and sets up the premise for a third film that I really, really want to see.

  2007-05-21
  0.3

• 2046 (2004) 2/5

  2007-03-22 15:36

  

  I really wanted to like this movie. I know a lot of people did, or claim to. It's beautifully shot and features various beautiful women in beautiful, chic dresses living in a beautifully shabby hotel in 1960s Hong Kong. It's a good-looking movie. But it lost me. It's just so taken up with its own elegant, oblique, art-house-romance view of the world, that I could never get past the artificiality of the characters and the story. The constant droning narration and pointless, ponderous sci-fi elements didn't help either. However, Christopher Doyle's gorgeous cinematography makes the movie worth watching, for a while, at least.

  2007-03-22
  0.3

• (500) Days of Summer (2009) 3.5/5

  2010-08-07 23:18

  

  2010-08-07
  0.3

• "Spaced" (1999) 5/5

  2006-09-03 21:34

  

  Completely brilliant Channel 4 series from the creative team that went on to make Shaun of the Dead. Hilarious characters, non-stop movie and comics references, and a sountrack featuring everything from Boards of Canada to Fantastic Plastic Machine -- I'm amazed I managed to go so long without seeing it.

  2006-09-03
  0.3

• "The Office" (2001) 5/5

  2006-08-26 22:32

  

  Literally the funniest thing I've ever seen.

  2006-08-26
  0.3

List generated by WP Movie Ratings.