REVIEW: Lymelife [2009]

“She can bring you an icepack or some Yoo-hoo or something” There is nothing like a critically acclaimed indie to bring you back to reality after the opening weeks of summer and the influx of blockbusters like Star Trek, Terminator, and Transformers 2. Derick Martini’s Lymelife is just that kind of film. A story about two families and their comings and goings through each others’ lives, we watch as Rory Culkin’s Scott sees the world around him, seemingly idyllic, fall apart. He sees his father as a hero, getting richer…

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REVIEW: The Hangover [2009]

“Couldn’t find a meter, but here’s four bucks” The success of Old School pretty much vaulted Todd Phillips onto the A-list for comedy directors. We waited and waited for his second hit, (I didn’t forget about Road Trip which was good as a precursor to Old School), but only got the mediocre Starsky and Hutch and—what I can only imagine as disappointing—School for Scoundrels. Maybe what Phillips needed was a script from the guys that brought us Four Christmases and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past … wow, this is sounding worse…

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REVIEW: Terminator Salvation [2009]

“So that’s what death tastes like” I have never seen a McG film before. I avoided the Charlie’s Angels movies and thought We Are Marshall looked pretty mediocre—besides being a based on true events sports flick; not my genre of choice. But here we have him helming the newest entry to one of the best science fiction series in cinema. How would someone that people oftentimes compare to a “hack” like Brett Ratner do with a big scale production containing an existing mythology and fan base calling for greatness? We…

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REVIEW: Angels & Demons [2009]

“Faith is a gift I’ve yet to receive” Author Dan Brown has a writing style that suits mainstream America. The guy is a consummate fixture on bestseller lists and frankly he deserves it. I read The Da Vinci Code and it was a page-turner; I remember not being able to put it down as new discoveries were made and the intricate plot unraveled. However, when the movie version came out, I was very under-whelmed by what Ron Howard did. He took all the excitement out of the novel by painting…

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REVIEW: Star Trek [2009]

“You can whistle real loud” Time-traveling Romulans? Why has no one thought of that yet? Leave it to the crew behind the hit series “Lost” and its time-traveling physics in season five to breathe some fresh air into a franchise that has been out of theatres for seven years. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman showed they could do serious action with Mission: Impossible III, but the campiness of Transformers gave me trepidation that their reboot/prequel Star Trek might lose its way. However, with a guy like J.J. Abrams at the…

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BNFF09 REVIEW: What Goes Up [2009]

“He was choking on Mars” Buffalo, New York hosted its first ever World Premiere showing of a film to be released theatrically in America. The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival’s gold ticket event for 2009 was for the film What Goes Up, a story set in the week leading up to the Challenger disaster in New Hampshire, home of teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe. Writers Robert Lawson and Jonathan Glatzer, (who also directed), were in attendance to introduce their work and explain their hope to get audiences thinking about what it…

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BNFF09 REVIEW: Boppin’ at the Glue Factory [Junkie Nurse] [2009]

“I locked myself out of my bathroom” I should have known from the moment I sat down for my second screening at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival that I was in for a good time. Three of the filmmakers were seated behind me, conducting an impromptu interview about the creative process that drove them to make Boppin’ at the Glue Factory [Junkie Nurse]. With good-natured quips, funny jabs at each other, and an overall jovial demeanor—at one point it was asked how the title was decided on and Hector Maldonado…

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BNFF09 REVIEW: Roses Have Thorns [2009]

“Japanese sucks, sorry” Some films seem like they will be great in concept, only to let you down in execution. The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival screening of Roses Have Thorns is one such example. An American production, but mostly spoken in Japanese and Korean, Jong W. Lee’s tale of love had the potential of being something very unique and creative. Dealing with four characters in their twenties—Jae Hoon Jeong’s Jay, a Japanese immigrant who has been in the country three years; his girlfriend Rachel, played by Vanessa Scott Lee; Kai…

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REVIEW: Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick [Everlasting Moments] [2008]

“No one ever died of a bit of the belt” What a gorgeous poster, and frankly a gorgeous film despite its hard look at love conquering abuse, alcoholism, and the shattering of dreams. Sometimes two people find themselves forgiving each other, not out of weakness, but out of the underlying powerful love bonding them. Academy Award nominee Jan Troell’s new film Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick, or Everlasting Moments here in the states, is a slow unveiling of what it was like to live in Sweden as a below Middle Class…

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