REVIEW: Toy Story 2 [1999]

“I can’t look. Can someone cover my eyes?” The stigma associated with sequels is that they always attempt to either go bigger or rehash what was already done. Both variations are usually set-ups for failure, sacrificing story for more bells and whistles or boring the audience with a slightly reworked alternate version, a watered down facsimile of the brilliant original. So, after Pixar produced just one other film post-Toy Story—the charmingly entertaining A Bug’s Life—the news that number three would be Toy Story 2 became an opportunity for everyone to…

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REVIEW: Toy Story [1995]

“Ages three and up! It’s on my box!” It’s hard to believe that, with Toy Story 3 coming out soon, it has been fifteen years since the original film. Back in 1995, Toy Story ushered in an animation renaissance for not only Disney, but also the medium as a whole. Pixar Studios had created something that changed the game forever, spawning countless other computer-graphic studios to follow suit and never fully reach the potential consistently exceeded by the Mouse House’s little buddy. Starting as a small-scale studio inside the Lucasfilm…

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BNFF10 REVIEW: Canine Instinct [2010]

“A dog is only as good as his stay” There is a reason I’ve never been a huge fan of documentaries. Besides feeling as though I’m in school being force-fed information I could really care less about, with stats and figures that bore me to sleep as they attempt to shock me with human travesty, I truthfully just have more of an emotional connection with fictional narratives that allow me to escape from real life. Every once in a while, though, a documentary will arrive to show a subject I…

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REVIEW: Iron Man 2 [2010]

“We don’t all run on batteries, Tony” The first Iron Man was a breath of fresh air when it came out in 2008. That was the year The Dark Knight showed audiences how morosely ambitious a comic book story could be, as well as arriving after the more serious tales of humanity X-Men and Spider-Man, amongst others, had. Sure there were the couple blips on the radar called Fantastic Four, but those were merely campy and pulpy because the story wasn’t strong enough to be anything else. It was the…

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REVIEW: Тамо и овде [Here and There] [2010]

“Welcome to Serbia, a country in transition” It’s won a ton of awards, including Tribeca’s New York Award which seems odd since it paints the city in a not so great light, (besides it’s beacon of freedom for an immigrant Serbian couple), and after watching Тамо и овде [Here and There] for myself, I can see why. It is a sweet story about one man’s washed up and defeated life, finding purpose where he’d least expect it. Down-on-his-luck, bitter, depressed, and all around cantankerous in his antisocial indifference, David Thornton’s…

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BNFF10 REVIEW: Copper Penny [2010]

“She’s the only woman I’ve ever been with” Some films not only necessitate a second viewing to wrap one’s head around the subtle intricacies, but also cause you to beg for the opportunity to watch again. Writer/director Jay Pulk’s short film Copper Penny is one of these. Screening at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, I am almost glad I wasn’t able to catch it. Had I been able to, I would have been completely distraught at the knowledge I might never have a chance to watch it again with the…

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REVIEW: Sex and the City 2 [2010]

“Somewhere between wild sex and a baby” Remember your wild thought of what Liza Minnelli would look like jiving and grooving while singing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)”? You know the dream that’s haunted you since Sasha Fierce’s hook took over the airwaves two short years ago—or was that a nightmare? Either way, boy did Sex and the City 2 burn the vision to my retinas just twenty or so minutes in. I’m not sure I ever really recovered from it. Sure there was tacky, ugly fabric…

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DESIGN: Rochester Broadway Theatre League 2009/2010 Season

2009/2010 Rochester Broadway Theatre League 2009/2010 Season, published by Buffalo Spree Publishing, Inc. Each performance at the Auditorium Theatre, on behalf of RBTL, has imagery and production notes supplied from the traveling company. RBTL created a new logo for the 2009/2010 season and from that I created a straight-forward layout, designing specific pages for each program, (like those depicted), as needed.

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REVIEW: Letters to Juliet [2010]

“And I curse her moustache” Let’s just say director Gary Winick’s track record is nothing to be inspired by—13 Going on 30 and Bride Wars amongst those he helmed. But, while he brings tripe like that to fruition, his producing credits include a few gems like Starting Out in the Evening and, a personal favorite, Pieces of April. Watching the trailer for his latest, Letters to Juliet, one can almost see what is a hybrid of the two types. Don’t get me wrong, there is a ton of romantic, true…

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REVIEW: Män som hatar kvinnor [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo] [2009]

“They always think I’ll show mercy” There is no better director in Hollywood to helm Stieg Larsson’s Män som hatar kvinnor [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo] than David Fincher. It is the perfect mix of Zodiac’s journalistic detecting and Se7en’s dark, religious-based murders. I can only see one problem—Niels Arden Oplev has already brought an adaptation to screens and it is every bit as good as it can be. Would Fincher bring someone uniquely his own to the project? For sure he would, and I’ll admit that I eagerly…

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REVIEW: Edge of Darkness [2010]

“What does it feel like?” It all begins with the surfacing of three dead bodies left in a river. A foreboding vision for the mystery thriller that is Edge of Darkness, these unknown people set the stage for the governmental corporate cover-up already started, now at Mel Gibson’s Thomas Craven’s doorstep. The trailers put out by Warner Bros. portray what looks like an action-packed revenger, pitting Gibson’s bereaved father against the people behind the murder of his daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic). Don’t be misled, however, because the film is in…

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