When I was a child, I was a huge fan of the original Men in Black, so much so that when my dad was shopping for a new (new to us anyway) car the summer of my 12th birthday I talked him into getting the exact same 1980’s Ford LTD that was used in that movie. Call it effective marketing or just good timing but … Continue reading R.I.P.D Review
Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise their roles as the love-struck couple of Jesse and Celine here in this third installment of Richard Linklater’s “Before” series. Before we get into anything else, as expected, Hawke and Delpy continue to have astonishing chemistry together and are both very fine actors who deliver knockout performances here. In the previous two movies, they were still getting to know … Continue reading Before Midnight Review
Before Sunrise begged the question, would you be willing to alter your entire life around one fateful night’s chance meeting? In that movie two twenty something’s met-cute on a train, wandered the streets of Vienna, and fell in love all the while walking and (endlessly) talking about everything under the sun. This movie asks basically the same question now that these two reconnect ten years … Continue reading Before Sunset Review
A guy (Ethan Hawke) and a girl (Julie Delpy), both in their early twenties, meet on a train bound for Paris in summer 1994. It doesn’t take them very long at all to discover that they have a remarkable chemistry together, and as such they begin a conversation on that train that will last the rest of the movie, and for two more movies following … Continue reading Before Sunrise Review
As part of a new reviewing strategy I have bolded and underline the parts of this review that I feel are the most important to read, so if you’d just prefer the one minute version of my thoughts here, feel free to scroll down at your leisure. Mei (Catherine Chan) is a very gifted child to say the absolute least, as we learn right at … Continue reading Safe Review
America has produced only three great writers as we are told in this movie’s opening narration voiced by Robert De Niro in the character of Jonathan Flynn, that being Mark Twain, J.D Salinger, and himself. He is, as a matter of indisputable fact, quite delusional. And it is this movie’s object to make him both eccentrically lovable and existentially loathable at the same time, a task … Continue reading Being Flynn Review
Has there ever been a movie that more effectively utilized a ‘cold opening’ better than Rio Bravo? We start with a dark and murky but still well crowded bar, a down on his luck and desperately drunk Deputy and a smug Gunman who first jokingly offers the Deputy a drink, and then tosses a silver dollar into a spittoon for him on the floor. These … Continue reading Rio Bravo Review
I shall open this review with the original foreword to the late, great Neil Postman’s most famous and enduring work ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business’ written and released way back in 1985. “We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of … Continue reading Amusing Ourselves to Death Review
Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion have made one of the most emotionally arresting, morally challenging, and thought provoking documentaries that I have seen in my recent memory with ‘The Redemption of General Butt Naked”. That said I’m not sure it was a movie worth making, or a story that deserves telling though to be totally honest. Furthermore I’m equally uncertain about whether or not I … Continue reading The Redemption of General Butt Naked Review
If you’re looking for the nuanced realism of modern action movies such as those in the Jason Bourne franchise with lots of shaky hand held camera shots and heroes who are held firmly to the laws of physics and whatnot, ‘The Last Stand’ is not the movie for you. If you’re ready for a break from that kind of gritty realism though and just want … Continue reading The Last Stand Review
Titanquisitor 