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  • Mamma Mia! - Review

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    Mamma Mia!  (2008)

    Anticip . . . ation. The actors. The music. The whole shebang. When everything aligns into the perfectly anticipated film and nothing can go wrong. Until you begin taking those first big gulps of your soda and unexpectedly aspirate a handful of popcorn. The indelible stage play Mamma Mia! wholeheartedly attempts to capture the magic of ABBA and metamorphose it into a cohesive story about life and its many eccentricities. Depending on whether or not you have seen it will undoubtedly effect your subsequent opinion of the filmic adaptation. With a spastic story-line mixed with bewildering musical sequences, Mamma Mia! is constructed for a special someone that can ignore lack of musical talent and focus blithely on superficiality. Equally filled with moments of mild amusement and unbearable pain, it's definitely a sight to behold for all of those that want to "take a chance" on it.


  • Nancy Drew - Review

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    Nancy Drew  (2007)

    Simple, clean lines with sporadic bursts of color. Like the vintage clothing she makes herself, Nancy Drew is a peculiar case just waiting to be solved. Seemingly existing in a world deeply hidden within our own in which teenagers barely able to drive are more than capable of scaling building, detail classic cars, willingly engage in intelligent conversion devoid of chatspeak and concern themselves with helping and understanding the world around them, Nancy Drew is for lack of a better word, refreshing. Albeit rather inhibited and droll in certain parts, the film is not unlike it's protagonist: abrasive to those not on the same wavelength and curiously appealing in its personable idiosycrasies.


  • Sex and Death 101 - Review

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    Heathers  (1989)

    With divine providence arriving neatly as an email in his inbox, Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) soon discovers that the powers that be have clued him into his future sexual proclivities and provided a list with the names of every person he will have sex with for the rest of his life. Scorned by a fetishisticly minded, abusive husband, Death Nell (Winona Ryder) becomes a champion of womanhood and embraces her own sadistic qualities as she leads the crusade / death march against those penis-wielding individuals that dare to scoff at the almighty power of the vagina. Together they amass a body count of victims (his orgasmic, hers comatose; i.e. Sex and Death 101) in this all too overwhelming slapstick, yet bordering romantic, comedy suffused with bits of erotica and horror that ultimately results in an putrid amalgam almost-could-have-been memorable film by that guy that made Heathers


  • Savage Grace - Review

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    Swoon  (1991)

    Savage Grace  (2007)

    Almost two decades after the stunningly beautiful Swoon, Tom Kalin makes his triumphant return to full-length feature filmmaking with Savage Grace. The scintillatingly perverse story of the Baekelands: Barbara (Julianne Moore), Brooks (Stephen Dillane) and Tony (Eddie Redmayne) struggling with their life of nonchalance and socializing with the glitterati around the world. Julianne Moore drives this uncomfortable yet enthralling depiction of a world without limits and societal mores, where Greek tragedy occurs before brunch and gritty true crime during cocktail hour.


  • Night of the Creeps - Review

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    If Roger Corman got together with John Hughes and Clive Barker to create a Sci-Fi / Horror / Gross-Out Comedy sometime in the mid-80's, it would undoubtedly resemble Night of the Creeps. Chubby naked aliens, axe-wielding mental patients, gratuitous breasts shots and turd-like slugs turning drunken frat boys into zombies, WHOOPIE!! Endlessly quotable and completely unforgettable.


  • Otis - Review

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    Otis  (2008)

    An amalgam of daytime soap opera and 80's horror, Otis accepts its B-movie heritage and goes completely gaga with it. Despite an all too familiar story, it works: a fat, lonely nerd goes crazy after being traumatized in high school and builds a dungeon in his decrepit home to torture buxom blonde nymphettes that he abducts while delivering pizzas. Once their daughter Riley has fallen prey to Otis, Will (Daniel Stern), Kate (Illeana Douglas) and their son Reed (Jared Kusnitz) decide to take some revenge on the psychopath and hilarity ensues. Drags in some parts but the soapy dialogue (particularly every word by Illeana Douglas) is more than reason enough to give it a chance.


  • Funny Games - Review

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    Funny Games  (2007)

    Toying with familiarity and completely obliterating the fourth wall, Funny Games is a horrific foray into the tragedy of reality and vice versa. As a family begins their summer vacation in the affluent and comfortably isolated Hamptons, they are thrust into playing a perverse series of "games" with two young men of WASPy, Aryan breeding that appear at their doorstep and smile their way through the threshold. Without explanation, or rather without a prototypically well-rounded and audience friendly explanation, words are exchanged, actions are taken and ignored, and all hope is abandoned. Engrossing to the point of physical revulsion, unappealing in its vagary yet surprisingly thought-provoking; definitely a trepidatious viewing experience.


  • Jumper - Review

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    Jumper  (2008)

    Owing in large part to being on the cusp of Generation X & Y and having that slacker mentality emblazoned on my soul, Jumper seemed to perfectly appeal to my flights of fancy and kept me excited from start to end. Simple story (undoubtedly too much so for some) and loaded with action and effects that keep you mesmerized, not skeptical, drive this film about a young man discovering that he has the ability to teleport anywhere in the world and using it to do whatever, whenever, he wants.


  • Watching the Detectives - Review

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    A respectable romantic-comedy for cineastes, Watching the Detectives details the spastic misadventures of Neil (Cillian Murphy) and Violet (Lucy Liu) as they attempt to deconstruct each others expectations about life and love. Sappy and loaded with filmic references for those in the know; overall a decent little movie for fans of its ilk. 


  • The Lather Effect - Review

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    After marinating on The Lather Effect and the indifference it conjured upon viewing, I was going to write a rather glib review until the DVD clicked over to the Extras section and I am now forced to pontificate on its contents rather than the film. Umm, WHAT?!? Never has the bonus features included on a DVD made me instantly despise someone (in this instance the director/screenwriter and crew) for being so utterly imbecilic (I'm biting my tongue) and patronizing to the viewer. Literally can't find the words and am just going to say "Boo!" to this film for fear of the endless rant I sense myself approaching.


  • Mama's Boy - Review

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    Mama's Boy  (2008)

    Gratingly cliched plot and uncomfortable dialogue prevent Mama's Boyfrom becoming the amusing comedy it could have been. With a group of actors amazingly typecast: Jon Heder as the self-deluded social outcast, Diane Keaton as the overbearing mother trying to do what's best for her child and Anna Faris as the quirky pothead, the outcome should have been laughably mediocre yet drags from scene to scene to scene to scene . . .


  • Boarding Gate - Review

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    Boarding Gate  (2007)

    Continuing his exploration of the perversely intriguing depths of the black market and its smorgasbord of kinky sex, drugs and the occasional murder, Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate follows the coyly alluring Sandra (Asia Argento) and the globe-spanning shenanigans she gets involved in on her quest to escape her past and begin anew as a Beijing nightclub owner. Captivating with its lavish locales and generous sprinkling of fetishistic sex, slightly hampered by its vague beginning and even more so ending.


  • The Strangers - Review

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    The Strangers  (2008)

    Expecting a romantic evening alone, James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) are unexpectedly thrust into a torturous game of hide and seek when a band of marauders appear on their doorstep. Undoubtedly influenced by the oeuvre of the Charles Manson "Family" and the events that led to the death of Sharon Tate and three others, The Strangers is surprisingly chilling in its depiction of a couples desperate attempts to overcome a seemingly omnipresent cadre of killers bent on fulfilling their murderous urges. Ultimately an unnervingly candid depiction of the motivation behind such brutality with the horror magnified by the rudimentary mask of the male intruder and the deadened eyes of the females kewpie doll visages.


  • Sex and the City - Review

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    Sex and the City  (2008)

    Without a prior investment in the lives of the characters that inhabit the spastic world of Sex and the City, attempting to view the feature film will undoubtedly be rather disappointing. Following the lives of four women maneuvering the pratfalls of single life in the big city, the Sex and the City series was smart, witty and laden with inappropriate behavior that influenced a wide array of people to let loose, have a drink and speak openly about sex. Gathering a cult following, the series culminated with a fantastical fairy tale inspired ending that pleased most and left others wanting more. In this paean to the series, the film follows the boisterous quartet of ladies for another year of their lives to see if the storybook endings were really in fact that. Equally cliched and heartfelt, perverted and romantic, Sex and the City is the perfect conclusion to such an iconic show.


  • Manda Bala - Review

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    Manda Bala  (2007)

    Manda Bala effortlessly tracks the evolution of corruption throughout Brazil: from the meandering tadpoles that inhabit the slums to the bullfrogs that fill the seats of Congress. Broad in its scope yet captivating in its detail, this documentary dissects the myriad problems that have transformed such a geographically rich and culturally diverse country into a haven for criminals that populate both sides of the poverty line. Children roam the streets re-enacting the latest kidnapping, businessmen spend their free time learning defensive driving techniques and legitimate government officials bide their time with methods of countering their corrupt counterparts. Brutal and a true revelation for the uninformed.


 

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