Live from Baghdad (2002)
OK story, pretty good cast. Keaton is unannoying and even likeable. Something different.
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Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
Quite a story. Not quite as biting as Moore’s stuff, but pretty well-researched.
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King Kong (1976)
Though topical in the 70’s, the big oil subplot is a bit forced. Peter Jackson told the story better. Effects are a bit clumsy. Lange was cute.
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Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
Gets the rating because I’m a Chevy fan. Some definite Fletch-isms in there. This might be his last decent film.
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Falling Down (1993)
Probably Schumacher’s most interesting film. Like Mosquito Coast, a story about how society drives a good man to be bad. We’ve all felt like this guy at some point. I’d love to see a movie like this come out today. Douglas is intense, but is this his normal psychosis? Or…
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Yellow Brick Road (2005)
Touching. Just wish I wasn’t so familiar with the songs. Not knowing them might have made them more emotional.
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U.S. Marshals (1998)
Snipes rides on the success of Passenger 57. Jones was in every movie of the 1990’s.
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The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
An inspired performance by Rush, but the story is just not good enough. Theron is stunning.
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Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
A group of soldiers are resigned to their deaths at Iwo Jima, but why should we care? Who are we rooting for? I don’t care about what happens because none of the characters are well-developed. What makes other ensemble pieces like Saving Private Ryan and even Love, Actually work is…
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A Bridge Too Far (1977)
A truly impressive cast, seems like every scene has a famous face in it. Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Richard Attenborough, Maximilian Schell, Ryan O’Neal, Denholm Elliott, James Caan, Liv Ullmann, Elliott Gould. Granted, the list is a lot more impressive now that…
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Babel (2006)
Another disjointed but neatly tied together story about the interconnectedness of life, in the vein of Traffic, Crash, Magnolia, and Grand Canyon. Lots of little “oh cool” moments as the story is stitched together, but I wonder if it have been any less enjoyable if it was presented chronologically. The…
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Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Not as good as the others. It’s starting to get a bit silly.
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Scary Movie (2000)
The idiotic sex humor is both too immature and too graphic for the 12 year old I watched it with. How can this be rated 14+ in Canada?
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300 (2006)
Definitely a visual accomplishment, with some very nice visual effects, but some story and character problems. A lot of comical (literally) liberties were taken, and faithfulness to the original comic may explain some of the movie’s other deficiencies. The characters are boring. Aside from Spartan pride, the don’t have any…
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Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (1938)
Tons of footage. Some great angles, even better editing. Quite possibly the greatest effort ever for a film about the Olympics. Amazingly neutral for a film from propagandistic Nazi Germany.
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Battle of Britain (1969)
A historic battle, but I don’t care much about it since none of the characters are particularly interesting. The Longest Day had much better characters and a much better build. A few nice aerial shots, but a lot of bad ones, too.
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X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Entertaining, but seemed a bit sterile somehow, perhaps because Ratner and not Singer directed this one. Pretty gutsy killing off some of the major characters. Was The Last Stand really The Last Sequel? Lots of nice effects. Jean Grey as Phoenix was awesome. Her eye and face effects were very…
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Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Openly and refreshingly sexual. No punches are pulled. The translated tagline says it all: “Life has its way of teaching us. Life has its way of confusing us. Life has its way of changing us. Life has its way of astonishing us. Life has its way of hurting us. Life…
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District B13 (2004)
Belle and Rafaelli have some fucking sweet moves. Good chemistry between them. Very French. Cursed with goofy acting from no-name actors (are these people rally famous in France?), wannabe coolness, and cheesy synthesized score of modern French cinema.
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African American Lives (2006–2008)
Good stuff. Well-written and well-made. Gates is friendly, informative, and well-spoken. Pretty impressive group of people coming together for this thing. Oprah’s pretty amazing.
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World Trade Center (2006)
Quality filmmaking by Stone. Emotional, yes, but I felt it was lacking a story. Perhaps the emotion was amplified by the freshness of the subject matter. Who was #20?
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The Brown Bunny (2003)
Does this movie have any qualities? Monumentally boring. Who is this Gallo guy? He’s just not interesting or entertaining enough to just watch. I think he just wanted to get his dick in a film.
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Roll Bounce (2005)
Unassuming, retro performances and average-looking actors make it feel genuine. You don’t find a lot of that in most historical pieces. Story’s OK.
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Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005)
Hollywood and IMAX meet somewhere in the middle, and the result is interesting and entertaining. Would have preferred to hear from real astronauts rather than be distracted by celebrity impersonations. Nice effects. The moon dramatizations are pretty good. Where/how did they shoot all that? After repetitive and desperate attempts to…
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Children of Men (2006)
Interesting story and characters, nicely paced, wonderful tension, some marvelously long takes, intense action, and beautifully shot and color-graded. There’s even some subtle, well-placed comedy in there. There are a lot of really good things about this movie. Cuarón is talented.
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The Longest Day (1962)
A bit of sugarcoating (was everyone really raring to go?), but at the same time, it doesn’t pull many punches. Overall, it seems to be a pretty faithful, lengthy, documentary-style look at what went on. Pretty impressive cast. Irina Demick was a hottie. The different languages helps to make it…
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Bachelor Party (1984)
Some good 80’s humor (mostly by Hanks), but a lot of awful 80’s goofball humor. The coke-snorting donkey was pretty funny. Was that the same alley I saw in Return of the Dragon? Hanks used to be very funny, verbally and physically. What happened to him? It’s been years since…
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The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
The acting is certainly dated. Lots of staunch militry stereotypes. Knotts is a good choice for an animated character. Limpet looks like a cousin of the Starkist tuna.
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Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)
Lots of beautiful women naked gives the movie a unique feel, but their intertwining stories are just not interesting enough. If they were as well-developed as Traffic or Magnolia, we’d really have something here. Moderately interesting performances by Hannah and Oh.
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Easy Rider (1969)
Hey, man… Let’s ride across American and do lots of drugs, man. Lame. Idiotic cuts between scenes don’t help. Would I have apreciated this more if I lived in the 60’s? I think this, from IMDB, explains it all: “Hopper and Fonda did not write a full script for the…
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Grand Canyon (1991)
The inspiration for Crash (2004)? Pretty well-made, great performances by pretty much everyone. Kasdan does a great job with the all-star, ensemble cast. Kline, Martin, and McDonnell are very impressive. Seems like Martin wanted to make a statement about LA in the early 90’s.
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The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Too theatrical, obvious this was a play. Not very funny or insightful. Ewell has some physical ability, but his incessant monologues are annoying. He’s a poor man’s Jack Lemmon. Monroe is pretty cute but has some sort of speech impediment. It‚Äôs like she‚Äôs trying to sound like Elizabeth Taylor. Whats…
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The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
Amazing performance by Woodward, definitely deserved an Oscar. Eve Black reminds me of Alabama from True Romance. Story and pace are wonderful, but poor lighting in a lot of scenes.
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The Right Stuff (1983)
A biography of the early space program. It’s got adventure, romance, and tragedy. Lots of great footage and some nice effects integrated with some pretty genuine performances. Great casting. Well-made. One of the film’s qualities is that it’s a pretty faithful, well-crafted period piece. There aren’t any hairstyles, clothes, or…
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Charlotte’s Web (1973)
A little too long, and little too much singing, but all in all, some good lessons for young ones. One of the things I really appreciated about this when I was younger was how it dealt with the subject of death, normally taboo for kids. Perhaps this is a good…
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The Burial Society (2002)
LaBelle is such a horrible actor that he’s hard to watch. He’s a pussy, too. This is the hero, and I want him to get shot. Rich is the only character in this one with any screen presence. Did he read “How to Make A Movie” for inspiration? The story…
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Superman Returns (2006)
Capturing the magic of the original is a nearly impossible task, but Singer’s unoriginal imitation with a few updated special effects doesn‚Äôt even make an attempt. There’s not much that’s new here. Interesting how they used the same music as the original with only a few new accents. Overall, I…
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Broken Flowers (2005)
Bill Murray is the king of underacting, or perhaps non-acting. So much of his performance, particularly in his later years, is just a reflection of the circumstances around him. He kind of meanders through the story, absorbing the light silliness of everyday life around him, the only clues to his…
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An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Really brings things into perspective. Well-researched, well-illustrated, and well-presented. He’s not a bad speaker. Like his “friend” Sagan, he seems to know what he’s talking about and is passionate about his subject. It’s weird to hear a politician with a Southern accent actually know what he’s talking about. Gets a…
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The Chumscrubber (2005)
An awkward tale about somber reality, like The Ice Storm, with a strange virtual reality thing going on. Great cast. Chatwin does a great job, and Belle is a cutie.
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Casino Royale (2006)
A wonderful balance of action, character development, comedy, and homages to the series. Polished direction, beautiful locations, nice photography, and really sharp dialogue. I love how they’ve reinvented Bond here and worked hard to establish his character. The best Bond movie in recent years, maybe ever. They took a chance…
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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Somehow, I think more of it was staged then they are letting on. And that ruins this kind of comedy. Cohen’s funnier as Ali G., I think.
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Gone with the Wind (1939)
Not a bad story, but extremely long. Fantastic color and quality (maybe that’s the DVD restoration) and impressive sets for 1939. Leigh is very cute, Gable is pretty cool. Howard is a horrible actor. It would have taken a super-human acting effort to carry this 400 lb. gorilla of a…
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When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006–2007)
A well-researched, well-edited, resourceful collection of material which really opens your eyes about what happened when Katrina hit. Hopefully, we learn from this.
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Raising Arizona (1987)
Offbeat like their other movies, but not quite as funny or smart.
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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Dark and interesting, with a nice story and good performances throughout. The musical interludes are funny enough to not be annoying. Wilder is great. I remember loving this as a kid. The effects are a bit dated at this point, but it’s still fun.
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Fun. As usual, Downey’s delivers wonderful, witty dialogue with ease. Kilmer keeps up nicely. Monaghan is foxy.
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Secondhand Lions (2003)
Kinda dumb. Caine pulls off the accent, but Osment doesn’t pull off puberty.
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The Crush (1993)
Silverstone is seductive and cute. That upside-down smile is strangely appealing. But Elwes is stale and annoying. He looks and sounds like a child molester. His accent comes and goes. Boring story. Writing is crap.
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Camilla (1994)
Pretty awful. It’s about violin music, but not much else. Unfortunate that this was Tandy’s last movie.
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Sixteen Candles (1984)
The first of Hughes 80’s teen comedy run but made before he really hit his stride. Goofy 80’s cheese, not all that funny. Interesting to see the formation of Hughes mini-brat pack and Hughes living his teenage years through these kids. Ringwald’s cute, she’s got soul in her eyes. Schoeffling’s…
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White Noise (2005)
Surprised with how eerie this one was. An extension of the static screen from Poltergeist. I wonder if there were EVP fanatics before Poltergeist came out. Keaton is fun to watch. It’s always nice to see actors who normally play big shots humbled by something bigger and badder. Sax seems…
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Barbarella (1968)
Cheesy and fun. Delightful costumes and goofy fantasy world effects, like The Wizard of Oz. An innocent but suggestive and good-looking central character. Great floating striptease to start the movie. From the world that Austin Powers was conceived. Lots of trippy visual effects. Fun music whenever Pygar takes off. All…
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The Ice Storm (1997)
Awkward, intense, score-less, and well-acted. A lot like American Beauty, Donnie Darko, or Magnolia in that sense. Nice cast.
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Fearless (1993)
Kind of interesting and weird and intense, with a Jesus character right in the middle. Typical Weir film.
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Aliens of the Deep (2005)
Some cool effects, and Cameron attempts to make something that was more “real” than the Hollywood stuff he normally makes, but the space effects and Abyss-like finale of an intelligent underwater civilization were steps in the wrong direction. The space exploration animation was truly awesome, but I’m not sure how…
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The Siege (1998)
A few tense moments, but mostly it’s about neglected characters taking turns crying about their problems. Bad formula writing, with too much “I’m a cool stud” dialogue. Lots of actors who bother me in this one. Denzel is OK, but I’m not sure he’s any more than a hard gaze…
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Maverick (1994)
The dialogue and comedy makes it seem very theatrical. Was it a play? Nice ending, but not entertaining enough to sustain its length. Gibson is annoying and unfunny. I don’t think he can do comedy. Foster’s cute. The Glover cameo is nice.
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Red Eye (2005)
OK suspense, but made with the sterility of a 90’s action flick. No surprise when I learned that Wes Craven directed. McAdams, as cute as she is, overacts. But maybe it’s not her overacting as much as it is the crummy script and dialogue.
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Risky Business (1983)
Pretty risque (yuk) for an early 80’s high school movie. Perhaps the R rating shows that the movie was probably not made for high school kids. Some dark themes, and it’s even darkly shot. That’s an early 80’s thing, even for comedies. This was the high school movie before John…
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Casshern (2004)
A two hour long, dream-like music video. Visually stunning, incredibly boring.
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A History of Violence (2005)
Story’s not bad, if not a bit slow. The dialogue is a bit stunted. Kind of an odd ending. Bello is slutty and hot. Some wonderful sex scenes.
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The Departed (2006)
Gangsters with cell phones, but the rest is vintage Scorsese. Nice twists and lots of exploding heads. The all-star cast dazzles. Farmiga is stunning, but she’s got crazy eyes in this one and it looks like she’s on drugs.
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Fantastic Four (2005)
Some nice effects, but not much drama. Needed to be a bit darker, and it needed another star (besides Alba).
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Jarhead (2005)
Some beautiful shots, and Gyllenhall is engaging. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have many redeeming qualities and that doesn’t give us any reason to care about his story.
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Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)
A nice departure for Miller. Touching story, and a very cool real-life montage at the end. Sarandon’s pretty good. Nolte’s not bad, either, although his accent intermittently disappears. Where did they find those kids?
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Jingle All the Way (1996)
Pretty horrible. Arnold should be ashamed. He could have at least tried to make it funny with some muscle comedy or something…
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Paper Clips (2004)
Really took me by surprise. I’d heard the story on the news, but didn’t think much of it. But seeing young, non-Jewish, country bumpkins in the middle of nowhere getting emotional about the Holocaust really tugs the heartstrings.
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Love Potion No. 9 (1992)
Kind of an interesting premise, but it’s a cheesy movie. Bullock’s ugly prostheses really work.
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The Commitments (1991)
Really good musical performances. Strong is a very interesting, very talented singer. Amazing that he was only 17… Interesting backstory to the film. Rowan’s appearance is very cool.
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Transamerica (2005)
Huffman is good. A woman playing a man playing a woman is a novel idea, and she pulls it off. A completely unselfish, emotional performance. Zegers is impressive, too.
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Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Each scene is shot and scored like it is the climax of the movie when there’s really nothing going on at all. What you end up with is an extremely boring movie without a story and full of anticlimaxes. The excruciatingly slow camera movements and still shots lull you to…
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Transporter 2 (2005)
Statham’s an OK action star. A bit stiff, a bit cold, but kind of fun to watch. Story is a bit lame, and the action is a bit far-fetched.
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Continental Divide (1981)
Pretty horrible. Completely unfunny, and the drama is transparent. The acting, timing, and story are awkward like most movies of the early 70’s and late 80’s. Sad that this was one of Belushi’s last movies.
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Regarding Henry (1991)
OK story. Crap ending. Ford’s an OK actor. I think he might be a tad overrated, though…
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Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Was it even a comedy? It’s like they went into each scene without a script or any clue what they were going to improvise. You know the writing is bad when the outtakes are funnier than the movie. And the outtakes weren’t even that funny. If anything, this movie was…
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Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Dark and nostaligic, a lot like Anderson’s Rushmore or Royal Tenebaums, although not quite as dramatically or stylistically over the top, so it sits in that uncomfortable “Is this supposed to be funny or is this supposed to be real?” zone a few times. The horn scene had me crying……
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Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
Interesting, with good performances all around. But why couldn’t either of them say anything to anybody when they realized they switched?
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Meet the Fockers (2004)
Nice sequel, more of the same comedy. The kid and animals are amazing.
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Wonder Boys (2000)
A light dark comedy. Tobey’s interesting as a brooding genius. Douglas has always had a way with words and has always been a master of deadpan.
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Two for the Money (2005)
Not bad. Piven is the most engaging character. Would have been interesting to see him in the starring role.
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Enter the Dragon (1973)
Action sequences are OK, but the story in between is silly. Lee sure is quick. I love the sound they used for people falling onto the ground in the 70’s.
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We Were Soldiers (2002)
It’s a war movie, but what’s the angle? We don’t really get to see any of the characters growing from the experience. Gibson is kind of annoying. Not enough story to distract us from his nervous ticks. Did Stowe go overboard with the collagen lips, or have they always been…
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The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Boring. Bogart’s pretty cool, though. Cool-looking bird statue.
Full ReviewCurb Your Enthusiasm: Season 2 (2001)
Good stuff. A few moments are a bit contrived, though.
Full ReviewCurb Your Enthusiasm: Season 3 (2002)
Still funny, but becoming a bit over-serindipitous. Every interaction results in an awkward confrontation to the point that it is almost predictable. If there were moments when quirky things DIDN’T necesarily happen, especially when you really expected them to, the quirky moments would be a lot funnier.
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The Island (2005)
A remake of Logan’s Run, and Bay does a pretty good job. Clever and nicely shot, with interesting coloring reminiscent of THX-1138. MacGregor pulls off the American pretty well, and the shots of him with himself are well-done (although it would have been cool if they had switched up his…
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Major League: Back to the Minors (1998)
A respectable job of getting most of the cast members back, but it’s just silly. The baseball action is simulated with a CGI ball, and the comedy is simulated with a CGI script.
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Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
Scott continues the story and characters faithfully and adds some of his distinct flavor with, nice photography, colorful filters, and really great synth score that pumps up scene after scene. More energy than the first one. I’d argue that the film helped perpetuate some of LA’s mystique in the late…
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Talkin’ Dirty After Dark (1991)
Some funny moments in a Friday sort of way. Similar actors playing similar roles.
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My Girl (1991)
Pretty believable period piece, but the story is a bit cheeseball. The stock characters and stock acting don’t help. Chlumsky is OK but too cute, too eloquent, and too charming. All characters, even kids, have to have an edge to be interesting. Culkin is mildly charming. Aykroyd does OK in…
Full ReviewCurb Your Enthusiasm: Season 1 (2000)
Funny, original stuff. Some of the situations are a bit contrived, but overall it really works. David and Hines are funny, likeable, and believable.
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Lady in the Water (2006)
Shyamalan creates yet another movie about sheltered, isolated characters exposed to supernatural monsters. They’re always about how these characters respond and grow from these supernatural experiences. And Shyamalan is really good about building emotion and setting the mood in a scene. The scary parts are scary, the touching parts are…
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
An epic western. Ironic how one of the greatest American westerns was was shot in Spain with a bunch of Italians. The dubbing is a bit awkward at times. Was it shot in Italian and dubbed in English? Or vice versa? Or both? Wallach is amazing as Tuco, and Van…
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I'm a photographer, web developer, travel enthusiast, and movie buff living in Alexandria, Virginia, USA.In the summer of 1993, I started writing reviews for every movie I saw and haven't looked back. I'm up to 2,363 reviews now. This makes me cool or a complete dork, depending on your perspective.
Some of these reviews contain spoilers, so if that bothers you, don't read!
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