REVIEW: kid 90 [2021]

What happens once I unlock it? My mindset entering Soleil Moon Frye‘s autobiographical documentary kid 90 anticipated a fun, nostalgic, low stakes look at kid celebrities. That’s what the slew of happy photos depicting teenaged Stephen Dorff, Brian Austin Green, and Balthazar Getty smiling sells: their childhood adventures as inseparable friends and peers removed from the otherwise tumultuous Hollywood machine. Frye only adds to that image when starting things off by saying, “this is an account of what it meant to be a child in the 1990s.” Expectations are therefore…

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REVIEW: 12 Hour Shift [2020]

You ever smell sadness? The Podunk nature to Brea Grant‘s latest film as writer/director, 12 Hour Shift, is integral to its success. Nothing works without it. We need the overt Catholicism of some of its characters. We need the imbecilic criminals operating way outside their intellectual depth despite having no emotional issues with taking another person’s life. And we need the sheer lack of worry that goes into blindly stealing organs from a hospital without even mentioning blood type or potential compatibility. If everything weren’t so outlandishly absurd, I’d have…

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REVIEW: Hamlet 2 [2008]

“My heart’s been stepped on like a baby kitten” If you have any predilection for being offended or hail from the quaint city of Tucson, Arizona, stay far away from Andrew Fleming’s Hamlet 2. To say it pulls no punches and could care less about being politically correct would be an understatement. With a song titled “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” and racism/bigotry running rampant, not to mention more that will make you question the meaning of decency, do not be surprised that it’s a film with a polarizing effect. A…

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