REVIEW: Micmacs à tire-larigot [Micmacs] [2009]

“No, I am the vegetable crisper” With a literal translation of ‘Non-stop Shenanigans”, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs à tire-larigot is definitely his return to high-style comedy and proof he may in fact belong in an insane asylum. His last film, A Very Long Engagement, was a fantastic wartime document shot in his signature aesthetic, but it’s subject matter brought it away from the more absurd surrealism we became used to with Amélie and Delicatessen. This isn’t to say Micmacs lacks a serious underlying story to the aforementioned steady stream of wackiness;…

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REVIEW: The Loved Ones [2010]

“I’m ready to draw on him now” Writer/director Sean Byrne is one Australian unafraid to go for broke. Had his horror film The Loved Ones been made in America, I can think of multiple instances of places where things would have been toned down or stopped altogether. There must have been something every five minutes or so after the halfway point that made me think, “okay, this is where the victim gets saved”. And then out comes a knife in the foot, a drillbit to the skull, and how about…

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REVIEW: The Killer Inside Me [2010]

“It’s always lightest just before the dark” Nobody is more across the board genre-wise than director Michael Winterbottom. Who else could traverse the broad canvases of Steve Coogan shenanigans, Guantanamo Bay documentation, the human condition of emotion in the face of terrorism, and an unsimulated meld of sex and rock n’ roll? Shake those sensibilities up with screenwriter John Curran’s penchant for thought-provoking material, (this year’s Stone is much more than the cookie cutter its trailer advertises), and the pulp crime styling of novelist Jim Thompson and you’ll need to…

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REVIEW: Barbe Bleue [Bluebeard] [2009]

“Then an ogress eats them” By intertwining the Charles Perrault fairy tale La Barbe bleue with present-day sisters on their own forbidden journey to the attic housing their copy of that exact story, Catherine Breillat is able to visually captivate, humor, and ultimately shock her audience. In Barbe Bleue [Bluebeard], the writer/director decides to update the fantasy half by evolving her beastly villain from bloodthirsty monster to a misunderstood aristocrat hoping beyond hope that he can find a woman who will truly love him. While she plays with the story…

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REVIEW: Honeydripper [2007]

“Like a soul being carried away from this life” Would you rather be beholden to a God who asks you to forsake all sinners and those holding you back from salvation or one who forgives and sees the good in humanity, striving hard to make up for mistakes of the past? And what constitutes a sin large enough to need repentance or bad enough to be left for the devil once the reckoning begins? Is vagrancy enough? How about a sheriff rounding up young black men to sell their sentencing…

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REVIEW: Jack Goes Boating [2010]

“Chicken, fish, or beef. Ya know?” Offbeat and uncomfortable in its characterizations of four New York City residents overcoming and succumbing to their secrets, Robert Glaudini’s Jack Goes Boating makes it to the big screen. Based on his Off-Broadway hit, star Philip Seymour Hoffman enlisted the playwright/actor to adapt the work into a screenplay and thus make his directorial debut. Three of the four principals partake in the transition—John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Amy Ryan replacing Beth Cole to round out the quartet—and they deliver some amazing performances. Deeply entrenched…

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REVIEW: Solitary Man [2010]

“Out there is nothing but possibilities” Have films embraced the ambiguous ‘does he or doesn’t he’ ending too often recently? I feel bad beginning with that question since I did actually like Solitary Man very much, but liking the whole doesn’t discount the fact that a contrived ‘conversational’ fade to black has gone from bold to clichéd in a short period of time. An easy device to end stories containing a central figure who reaches an epiphany on life, the viewer can contemplate what they saw and choose where they…

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REVIEW: The Extra Man [2010]

“You may write my biography, but you will never capture my soul” Over the past two years I’ve become acquainted with the work of writer Jonathan Ames through his subtly brilliant comic noir “Bored to Death” on HBO. Naming the protagonist after himself, the young novelist—played by Jason Schwartzman—is a mess of neuroses and a man of eccentric proclivities who’s friends are a bullish depressive and a youthful older colleague and mentor. One can see striking similarities to those tropes in the new film from American Splendor directors, Robert Pulcini…

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REVIEW: Greenberg [2010]

“Can a pool overflow?” There is a saying relayed by Greta Gerwig’s character Florence which perfectly encapsulates what happens during the course of Noah Baumbach’s newest look into the angst of suburbia, Greenberg. She says, “Hurt people hurt people”. The phrase is apt, especially for her being the one a hurt person, Ben Stiller’s titular Roger Greenberg, constantly hurts. However, no matter how much worth there is in the dynamic between these two people separated by fifteen years, the generational gap a much larger chasm, I can’t shake the fact…

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REVIEW: The Dilemma [2011]

“… took more virgins than Francis Albert Sinatra” Sometimes all you need is a little Vince Vaughn. Don’t even ask how much I dreaded checking out The Dilemma despite him, due to the directed by Ron Howard label. I like the guy, don’t get me wrong, but his by-the-books Dan Brown adaptations were sorely lacking in cinematic ingenuity, (I cringe at the fact he’s handling The Dark Tower Series as a result), and thus a seemingly straight forward comedy wasn’t looking too palatable. But sometimes a director can excel by…

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REVIEW: Κυνόδοντας [Dogtooth] [2009]

“Soon your mother will give birth to two children and a dog” Sometimes a film comes along that disarms you by its originality while completely disturbing you to the point where watching again may be too much to handle. The Greek Κυνόδοντας [Dogtooth] is just such a work. Co-writers Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos—who also directs—take us into the isolated world of a nameless family forsaking society for its own experimental existence. Beginning with a look at the three children living inside a fenced in estate whose borders hold dangers…

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