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Turn (2001, Hirayama Hideyuki)
The modern Japanese drama tends to be emotive. Even when they aren’t good, they succeed in making the viewer care for the characters. Turn is, ostensibly, a Japanese Groundhog Day. Only not funny. Where Groundhog Day was about Bill Murray interacting with people with no consequence, the character stuck in turnover in Turn is alone.… 📖
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Speaking of Sex (2001, John McNaughton)
Let me annotate the opening cast crawl with my thoughts at the time…. James Spader–great, love him on “Boston Legal.” Melora Walters–from Magnolia, love her, she’s in nothing. Jay Mohr–liked him in Picture Perfect when I saw it, now can’t believe I liked it… Catherine O’Hara, Bill Murray… solid people. So what happened? It’s actually… 📖
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Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan)
Well, now, I’m surprised. Batman Begins is not terrible. It’s not good either. Not good at all. It has damning faults in three areas, and since this film is the first critically praised one I’ve thrashed–at least the first critically praised one currently still in the theaters–this post is going to be a little more… 📖
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White Dog (1982, Samuel Fuller)
I kept getting sad during White Dog, probably for a few reasons. First, the film is effective: it’s about people faced with a reality (a racist training his dog to attack black people) they can’t fix, but they’re going to try. I have a bootleg from Denmark (everyone’s bootleg is from Denmark), but hadn’t watched… 📖
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The Eagle Has Landed (1976, John Sturges), the extended version
We all know Winston Churchill wasn’t kidnapped or assassinated during World War II–except maybe President Bush, but he’s still waiting for John Rambo to call with info on Osama–so The Eagle Has Landed‘s ending is a bit of a give-away. The film succeeds–to some degree–since it presents the audience with characters they care so much… 📖
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Superman II (1980, Richard Lester), the restored international cut
I read about the Superman II restored international cut (RIC)–a fan effort to compile all the extra Superman II footage from various television prints, mostly from foreign markets–in Entertainment Weekly. It said to head over to Superman Cinema to get a free copy, just so long as you provide free copies. By that time, however,… 📖
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Melinda and Melinda (2004, Woody Allen)
Woody Allen has written around thirty films, probably thirty-four. Ten of these films are some of the finest in the last thirty years, give or take. But he tries something new in Melinda and Melinda and it doesn’t work. Of his recent work, his post-Miramax period, Melinda is the second strongest–Curse of the Jade Scorpion… 📖
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Danton (1983, Andrzej Wajda)
Period pieces and biopics tend to fail, at least ones made since 1950. I was just reading something about the growing audience want for realism in movies–this movement growing in the 1960s and 1970s (though the location shooting of the late 1940s is certainly a precursor)–that want made period pictures and biopics difficult… there needed… 📖
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Alien³ (1992, David Fincher), the assembly cut
So, I guess David Fincher wasn’t that upset about the “Assembly Cut” Fox did of Alien³ for their moronically-titled “Alien Quadrilogy” DVD set a few years ago, because he left his name on it. Fincher’s always badmouthing Alien³ but hasn’t got the balls needed to Alan Smithee a film (like Michael Mann has). Now, was… 📖