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Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984, Leonard Nimoy)
Well-made but problematically scripted sequel has William Shatner and the gang gallivanting across the galaxy to try to resurrect a fallen comrade. Along the way, the Klingons (led by an enthusiastic but underwhelming Christopher Lloyd) go after Shatner’s kid (Merritt Butrick, back from II) and Robin Curtis (taking over from II’s Kirstie Alley). It’s a… 📖
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, Nicholas Meyer), the director’s edition
Layered, complex TREK outing has William Shatner and company dealing with aging in the 23rd century, but also with Ricardo Montalban returning (from the original show) and going after the good guys. Beautifully produced, with fantastic direction, and a gorgeous James Horner score. Excellent acting from pretty much everyone. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading → 📖
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36 Quai des Orfèvres (2004, Olivier Marchal)
Sometimes quite good cop movie about good cop Daniel Auteuil and good-but-complicated cop Gérard Depardieu jockeying for the same promotion and both becoming morally compromised (or worse). Loses its footing more and more as things progress. Auteuil’s good, Depardieu’s awesome, but they can’t save the film from director Marchal or the script. DVD.Continue reading → 📖
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L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)
Middling (at best), “handsome,” Oscar-bait adaptation of James Ellroy corrupt cops novel set in early fifties L.A.. Good performance from Russell Crowe and a great one from Kevin Spacey can’t make up for ineffective lead Guy Pearce, risibily bad Kim Basinger turn as femme fatale, or director Hanson and Brian Helgeland’s disjointed script. It also… 📖
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Azumi 2: Death or Love (2005, Kaneko Shusuke)
Direct continuation sequel is probably incomprehensible if you haven’t seen #1. Ueto Aya is a master assassin in Tokugawa Japan; everyone underestimates her because she’s a girl. Low budget, bad villains, and Kaneko’s mostly unimaginative direction don’t help, neither do the sillier aspects of the script. Ueto’s good and Kaneko does an amazing job with… 📖
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Hail the Conquering Hero (1944, Preston Sturges)
4F Eddie Bracken spends WWII working in a shipyard but writes letters back home about his overseas exploits. He tells a group of Marines (led by William Demarest) about the regrettable ruse and they decide to make it real, taking him home the hero. Ella Raines is the girl he left behind. Spectacular script and… 📖
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Foreign Correspondent (1940, Alfred Hitchcock)
Excellent propaganda thriller with Joel McCrea as an American reporter heading to Europe before the outbreak of WWII. He finds himself in a bunch of intrigue concerning fetching Laraine Day and her father, Herbert Marshall. George Sanders is great as a British reporter. Outstanding pace, set pieces, and script. Magnificent direction from Hitchcock. DVD, Blu-ray,… 📖
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Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005, Nick Park and Steve Box)
First and only full-length theatrical outing for director Park and his clay animated creations Wallace and Gromit. It’s a great expansion of the duo’s adventures, but one is kind of okay. The clay animation and writing are exceptional work, as always, from Park and company. DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming.Continue reading → 📖
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Gattaca (1997, Andrew Niccol)
Outstanding sci-fi set in nearish future when eugenics is the norm. Uma Thurman and Jude Law are perfectly bred humans, Ethan Hawke’s a genetically inferior love child. Thanks to tragedy, Hawke’s able to pose as Law, but then his true (genetic) self becomes a murder suspect. Great direction, awesome production design (by Jan Roelfs) and… 📖
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Eyewitness (1981, Peter Yates)
Gentle, deliberate dramatic mystery/thriller (reuniting director Yates with BREAKING AWAY writer Steve Tesich) has custodian William Hurt lying about witnessing a crime so he can cozy up with TV reporter Sigourney Weaver, who he’s got a major crush on. Excellent performance from Hurt, sometimes excellent, sometimes not performance from Weaver. Not quite successful but a… 📖
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The Missouri Breaks (1976, Arthur Penn)
Singular Western pits rustler-turned-farmer Jack Nicholson against mercenary Marlon Brando. Exceptional on most fronts, including Penn’s direction, Nicholson’s performance, and the John Williams score. Brando’s good too, he’s just not Nicholson. DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming.Continue reading → 📖
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The Twilight Samurai (2002, Yamada Yôji)
Widowed samurai Sanada Hiroyuki has given up the warrior life to take care of his kids. Then childhood love Miyazawa Rie comes to town and things start changing. Good performances–especially from Sanada–but the narrative’s disjointed and suffers from a constant lack of focus. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading → 📖
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Cop Land (1997, James Mangold), the director’s cut
Sylvester Stallone’s a small town sheriff taking on dirty New York cops after internal affairs guy Robert De Niro inspires him to be a better cop. Beautifully made, some wonderful performances, but it doesn’t quite come together. The director’s cut adds thirteen minutes of not significant enough to make a difference side plots. DVD.Continue reading… 📖
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It Happens Every Spring (1949, Lloyd Bacon)
Ray Milland’s a college professor with a science-powered baseball who becomes a star pitcher. Paul Douglas is his catcher, Jean Peters is his girlfriend. Great performance from Douglas and some good writing can’t save the dull film. Milland’s disinterested and charmless, Peters is good but not in it enough to matter. DVD, Streaming.Continue reading → 📖
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Escape from Fort Bravo (1953, John Sturges)
Outstanding Civil War Western with William Holden as the hard-ass Union prison camp captain who falls for visiting Eleanor Parker. Only her ex is Confederate captain John Forsythe, who breaks out while she’s there and she lambs it out with him. So Holden goes after them only for an Indian tribe to ambush them. Great… 📖
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The African Queen (1951, John Huston)
Awesome adventure/romance set in WWI Africa; Katharine Hepburn’s a British missionary hitching a ride with American ex-pat steamer captain Humphrey Bogart. After a first act where Bogart seems like a guest star, the movie really gets going as Hepburn convinces Bogie it’s their duty to take on a German gunboat. Incredible performance from Hepburn, amazing… 📖
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Boys’ Night Out (1962, Michael Gordon)
Mildly amusing and often sexist 1960s sex comedy with James Garner and his pals trying to set up a “bachelor” pad (only most of them are married) complete with in-house blonde (Kim Novak). Novak’s good, Garner’s okay (playing the bachelor and Novak’s de facto love interest); William Bendix has a great cameo as the boys’… 📖
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Henry Fool (1997, Hal Hartley)
Obnoxious jerk Thomas Jay Ryan befriends (and exploits) introvert garbageman/unknown great American poet James Urbaniak, seducing his sister (a spectacular Parker Posey) but encouraging his writing. Very long, very difficult. The last act is truly phenomenal stuff. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading → 📖
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Berlin Correspondent (1942, Eugene Forde)
Kind of dumb but well-paced Fox propaganda picture has Nazis out to trap American newsman Dana Andrews in, you guessed it, Berlin. Andrews is great, Virginia Gilmore’s good as his girlfriend (who the Nazis have snooping on him). Martin Kosleck’s awesome as the villain. DVD.Continue reading → 📖
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Blink (1994, Michael Apted)
Should be good, but isn’t thriller has blind musician Madeleine Stowe getting a cornea transplant, only to have someone target all the recipients of the donor’s organs. Aidan Quinn and James Remar are cops, Peter Friedman is the doctor. All of them are romantically interested in Stowe, maybe dangerously. Great performance from Stowe can’t save… 📖
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Night Moves (1975, Arthur Penn)
Superlative mystery drama about L.A. private investigator Gene Hackman going to Florida on a case (to avoid his crumbling marriage to Susan Clark) and getting mixed up with stunt men, smuggling, and Jennifer Warren. Young Melanie Griffith is the missing person in the initial case. Exceptional performances from Hackman and Warren. Clark’s real good too.… 📖
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The Lower Depths (1936, Jean Renoir)
Problematic, reductive adaptation of Maxim Gorky play about residents of Russian flophouse and their successes and failures trying to get out of poverty. Great performances from Jean Gabin and Louis Jouvet, but director Renoir loses track of the film when away from them. DVD.Continue reading → 📖
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Tremors (1990, Ron Underwood)
Isolated desert town–full of lovable goofballs (led by handymen Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward)–has to contend with giant killer worm monsters. Great acting (Gross’s survivalist redefined the actor), wonderfully paced script, excellent special effects. It’s loads of fun. DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming.Continue reading → 📖
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The Graduation (2002, Nagasawa Masahiko)
Tsutsumi Shin’ichi is an introvert professor, Uchiyama Rina is his long-lost (and completely unknown to him) daughter. She tracks him down and starts influencing his life for the better. Amazing performance from Tsutsumi can’t save the film, which has serious script problems. DVD (R2).Continue reading → 📖
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They’re a Weird Mob (1966, Michael Powell)
Rather bad comedy about Italian immigrant Walter Chiari moving to Australia. The acting is actually fine, it’s the script (by director Powell’s long-time partner Emeric Pressburger–under a pseudonym). May have been responsible for kicking off the Australian film industry? But otherwise, a big stinker. DVD (R4).Continue reading → 📖
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Thieves Like Us (1974, Robert Altman)
Wonderful gem of a movie romance (between Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall) amid a 1930s-set crime drama. Will Carradine pick a life of bank robbing or listen to Duvall and go straight. Great performances from all involved and Altman’s direction excels in the setting. Screenplay by Calder Willingham, Joan Tewkesbury and Altman. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading… 📖
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Volcano (1997, Mick Jackson)
Nicely paced disaster movie about a volcano growing out the La Brea Tar Pits. Anne Heche is the scientist, Tommy Lee Jones is the city guy, Gaby Hoffman’s his daughter. It’s occasionally annoying, with bad dialogue, but the cast is great. Heche and Don Cheadle are outstanding; Jones is fine. The film takes itself just… 📖
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Japón (2002, Carlos Reygadas)
Suicidal Alejandro Ferretis–he’s got a bad leg–travels to a rural area to do the deed, then meets an older woman (Magdalena Flores) and decides life’s worth living so long as she gets jiggy with him. Pretentious, self-indulgent, long. So long. Reygadas’s uneven direction is at least better than the script; the all-amateur cast is far… 📖
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Matewan (1987, John Sayles)
Strangely simplistic take on a 1920s West Virginia coal miners work stoppage. The film’s jumbo scale gets away from director Sayles in the script so he relies way too heavily on caricature. Great performances from Chris Cooper, Mary McDonnell, and David Strathairn. Very disappointing. DVD.Continue reading → 📖
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The Spies (1957, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Gérard Séty runs a failing psychiatric hospital and agrees to hide mysterious Curd Jürgens (for a fee). The hospital is then overrun by spies from both East and West, complicating things. All the acting is good; Séty is excellent. Very complex script, superiorly navigated by Clouzot’s direction. DVD (R2).Continue reading → 📖
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Versus (2000, Kitamura Ryuhei)
Technically magnificent action/horror picture has Sakaguchi Tak fighting zombies with a samurai sword while wearing an ultra cool black leather trench coat. The writing is always iffy, but Kitamura’s direction tends to compensate enough. DVD, Streaming.Continue reading → 📖
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Olga’s Chignon (2002, Jérôme Bonnell)
Patient, deliberate drama about a family coping with the mother’s death. Only the wrap-up is uneven; an excellent debut from writer-director Bonnell. DVD.Continue reading → 📖
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Safety Last! (1923, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor)
Outstanding comedy has Harold Lloyd going from store clerk to “Human Fly” as he tries to make it in New York City. Superb physical antics from Lloyd; the film ends with his breathtaking attempt to scale as twelve-story building. Also a very accessible silent film for newbies DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming.Continue reading → 📖
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The Three Musketeers (1993, Stephen Herek)
Graphically violent–but still PG–Disney adaptation boasts a shockingly good performance from Charlie Sheen, an appealing one from Oliver Platt, and a good villain turn from Michael Wincott but it’s otherwise fairly dreadful. Bad direction and a bad script (from David Loughery); awful performance from Chris O’Donnell (as D’Artagnan). Kiefer Sutherland tries and fails. Tim Curry’s… 📖
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28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle)
Cillian Murphy wakes up from a coma to discover the world overrun by zombies and has to try to survive. Not just from the zombies, but also from the military. Visually stunning, with Boyle shooting on DV; great script by Alex Garland; excellent performances. Murphy makes an outstanding Everyman. The film has at least one… 📖
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Blade: Trinity (2004, David S. Goyer)
I imagine you’re thinking, why would he watch that? And I agree, Blade: Trinity is hardly Stop Button material. Except… I have been insulting David S. Goyer a lot lately (because he sucks) and I wanted my insults to be more informed and, also, because I enjoyed Blade II. I’ve never seen more than fifteen… 📖
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The Shadow (1994, Russell Mulcahy)
The Shadow is not a perfect film, but there’s so much good about it. Besides that its great cast–Jonathan Winters is the only weak link–besides that its beautifully constructed screenplay–the best constructed one I can think of… I haven’t seen this film since the theater, so I was sixteen. I don’t remember liking it. I… 📖
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Cold Comfort Farm (1995, John Schlesinger)
Do the Brits have any major film movement? In the 1920s, the Germans had the expressionist movement. In the (what?) 1960s, there was the French New Wave. In addition to contributing more Greenhouse Effect-causing pollutants to the atmosphere, the United States has perfected the over-produced blockbuster. The British, however, have never really had a movement.… 📖