REVIEW: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie [1976]

Got the world by the balls. It’s a wild beginning with Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara) paying off a guy (Al Ruban‘s Marty) we assume let him borrow money to create his now successful club. Fast-forward to him introducing his seedy establishment’s main act in Mr. Sophistication (Meade Roberts) and the naked girls the audience has paid to see. Fast-forward again to one last payment to Marty. And give us one more to show Cosmo picking up Alice (Alice Friedland), Margo (Donna Gordon), and Rachel (Azizi Johari) in a limousine before…

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DVDS: Criterion Collection

My collection of DVDs from the venerable Criterion Collection, in order by spine number. (the package art is almost better than the films themselves) [fb-like-button]

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REVIEW: My Sister’s Keeper [2009]

“I’m sorry I let them hurt you” I have not read the Judi Picoult novel for which the new film My Sister’s Keeper is based, and I think that is a good thing. Whether I would have thought the movie did or didn’t live up is beside the point as, from the scuttlebutt at the completion of the screening around me stated, the endings are completely different. Truthfully, I think I like the cinematic conclusion much better than the literary one, if these audience members are to be believed. What…

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