REVIEW: Anastasia [1997]

In the dark of the night she’ll be gone. In a fantasy world where royalty was adored as idyllically benevolent leaders thinking only about how to protect and serve their people, the Romanovs were betrayed by the evil Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd) who subsequently consorted with the Devil to wield dark magic powerful enough to curse their entire bloodline to death. His goal was to eradicate them and seize control, but things didn’t go quite as planned. And although the princess Anastasia (Kirsten Dunst) narrowly escaped his grasp when he fell…

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REVIEW: Into the Woods [2014]

“… And home before dark.” The involvement of Disney on any adaptation of beloved source material can’t help being a double-edged sword. On the one hand their clout and financial backing will ensure the production looks fantastic and attracts the type of talent worthy of the property. On the other their brand brings with it a very specific morality code and target demographic. What this means is that something as dark as Into the Woods and its satirical take on all our favorite fairy tales playing up the lecherous sexuality…

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REVIEW: The Jerk [1979]

“I was born a poor black child” It was sheer dumb luck that while reading Steve Martin’s autobiography earlier this year I saw his film The Jerk was being shown on tv. A few months later and the threat of my DVR being erased, I finally took the time to view it. Martin definitely did something special, infusing his stand-up routine into a story of one man’s rise to wealth and subsequent loss of everything. His crazy persona takes center stage right from the start as we meet Navin Johnson,…

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