recent product reviews
American Made (2017)
With the guns and drugs, there’s an attempt to make the story edgy. With the 80’s film styles and sets and cars and music, there’s an attempt to make this movie cool and retro and stylish. With the archival interviews and fun edits, there’s an attempt to make the storytelling…
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2012 (2009)
Lowest common denominator Emmerich garbage. Story is paint-by-numbers, evenly lit scenes give the movie a sterility that is ruined even more with CGI ugliness, intrusive and manipulative scoring replaces real emotion, obnoxious sound effects hit you over the head to make sure you know what just whizzed by or blew…
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Justice League (2017)
CGI crap. Every scene is a meaningless photograph with meaningless characters. Pretty much what you’d expect from Zack Snyder.
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The Shape of Water (2017)
Part fantasy, sci-fi, drama, romance, musical, and fairy tale, all blended together with a bit of whimsy. The caricature characters, a weird mix of accents, nostalgic sets, an appreciation of classic television and film, fun edits, and a French score by Alexandre Desplat give everything a timeless, Amélie feel. This…
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Labor Day (2013)
The emotional story, gentle pacing, slow beauty, and Gattlin Griffith’s soulful eyes give the movie a wonderful, melancholic feel. And good tension in many scenes, though a bit forced at times, keeps things interesting. Brolin has a great presence. I love how in his career, he has vacillated between playing…
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Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life (2018)
These guys both certainly have a gift for comedy and great chemistry. It’s fun to watch. You can tell that much of the show is rehearsed, but there’s just the right amount of ad-libbing and riffing and rolling with mistakes. The back-and-forth self-deprecation really defines their style. It’s really a…
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The Company (2003)
It’s Altman, so it’s aimless and boring. An almost documentary-like look at ballet. If you like ballet, see it. Classically trained Neve is impressive. I guess she and Franco wanted to add an Altman art film to their repertoires.
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Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
As a kid, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood had unbelievably corny levels of friendliness and warmth. So over-the-top that it was often hard to watch. Who knew it was genuine and motivated such by a poignant and insightful philosophy? Rogers describes the first time he watched television. At the very inception of…
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Ready Player One (2018)
Kind of fun. The story and themes feel a lot like Avatar (entering a world as another character) and The Matrix (things you do in one world affect the other world). But it feels like a lot of story points were glossed over, perhaps because the story in the novel…
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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 2,374 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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