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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Category: Movie Reviews

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Movie reviews from Titanquisitor. Classic films, new releases, and everything in between — reviewed without a political agenda and without telling you how to feel about them. Every review closes with Theia’s Decree, our five star rating scale for film.

Entertainment

Blazing Saddles (1974) Review

William McPherson

  John Wayne was reported to have been offered a part in Blazing Saddles. After reading the script he called back and said “I can’t be in this, it’s too dirty… but I’ll be first in line to go see it when it comes out.” Imagining Wayne in the Wilder role makes me glad he turned it down. The other casting question that often comes up is why Richard Pryor did not play the part of the black sheriff in the film. That one apparently came down to a studio call, which is unfortunate since Wilder…

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Entertainment

Killing Season (2013) Review

William McPherson

  The premise here is interesting, the talent is extraordinary, the action and atmosphere is fine, but the end result is one of the most befuddling messes I can long remember. The premise is this; 20 years after the Bosnian war, a retired US soldier now living out in the Appalachian countryside finds a strange hitch-hiker with a secret past. Turns out said hitch-hiker was among a group of enemy soldiers that he had (almost) executed two decades prior. Now he has come for his long awaited…

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Entertainment

Almost Famous Review

William McPherson3 Comments

Almost Famous is a movie I not only love, but was important to me in my formative years, and my life in general. It tells the story of William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a 15 year old kid on assignment for Rolling Stone magazine. He has to cover an up and coming rock band during what critic Lester Bangs (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) calls the dying days of Rock N’ Roll. Along the way, Miller falls in love with a “groupie” (although she would object to the term) named Penny played by Kate Hudson. Penny…

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Ms 45 Review
Entertainment

Ms. 45 (1981) Review

William McPherson

It is probably not something I should admit to anyone aside a therapist, but I grew up absolutely loving the hell out of late 70s/early 80s hard boiled revenge movies such as Death Wish and the like. Now as an adult, I occasionally stumble across a title I somehow missed during those years. Ms. 45 was just such a picture. Ms. 45 This movie tells the story of a young mute girl who works at a sewing shop. She is innately shy, and private, and has that wounded cat look about her. In most movies I…

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Anna Kendrick Noelle
Entertainment

Noelle Review

Gary Smith

Originally slated for a theatrical release, Disney made the decision to go with Noelle as the first live-action, original movie for their Disney+ streaming service. With the service launching on November 12th, it was definitely a good decision by Disney because November and December are months when folks like to watch Christmas movies. Also a good decision because Anna Kendrick brings some name value to the service's first original film, and also because Noelle is better suited for at home…

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Entertainment

La Bamba (1987) Review

William McPherson

  In the grand scheme of music history Richie Valens, or Valenzuela (Lou Diamond Phillips) was a minor figure in music history, and his biggest claim to fame is that he died in the same plane crash that took the life of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, but his story is such a great little slice of the American dream that it makes for great cinema. This movie opens, and is frequently interrupted by apocalyptic visions of death via a falling plane that puts a cloud of gloom over the entire…

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Entertainment

Wild Card (2015) Review

William McPherson

Nick Wild is a Las Vegas bodyguard with a gambling addiction, and an action movie hero addiction as well. Dreaming of escaping this seedy world so he can sail a yacht around Corsica, he earns money through cutesy side jobs like helping losers get laid by letting them beat him up in front of their girlfriends, while serving as the “Mike” Jason Alexander’s “Better Call Saul” character. The “Gus” of their world is a mysterious gangster known only as “Baby” who runs the entire local Vegas…

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Backfire Netflix Review
Entertainment

Backfire (2017) Review

William McPherson

I’ve seen plenty of movies which required its audience to turn off their brain. ‘Backfire’ (2017) is one of a select few that also requires them to turn off their souls. Note: their brains should still be turned off as well. I had moderate hopes for a mid-level shoot em' up based on a promising premise that hooked me in the Netflix description and made me decide to give this film a shot. Two urban thugs attempt to rob and then gun down a couple out on a date night. The couple turns out to have…

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Run All Night
Entertainment

Run All Night Review

William McPherson2 Comments

Liam Neeson, as I have stated before, is my jam. If Robert Mitchum or Charles Bronson were still around I would have a harder choice, but since they’re not, Liam is the undisputed king of my favorite hard asses. Ed Harris is also up there, and this movie brings the two of them together as an aging gangster and hitman, both of with grown up children who wind up in a really tight bind, one night in the city. Harris plays an aging gangster who laments the fact that all of the locally owned…

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The Starving Games
Entertainment

The Starving Games Review

William McPherson

It is a futile endeavor to review a movie directed/produced by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the duo responsible for such "classics" as Epic Movie, Date Movie, Vampires Suck, Meet the Spartans, and the Scary Movie franchise. This movie is what it is. Nothing I say will discourage those who like this sort of thing to knock it off, and those who weren’t going to see it anyway would still be wise to remain on that trajectory. That said, I write all this since I did happen to watch this movie…

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High Fidelity
Entertainment

High Fidelity Review

William McPherson

For many of my teenage years and into my twenties I was one of those dorky retro kids obsessed with old vinyl records and bands that, if my friends had heard of, they did not care about. I say that because when a film is made about a sub-culture, it is important to get that sub-culture right, and High Fidelity does just that, in a way that is equal parts tribute and lampoon. The Jack Black character for instance who is the very cliché of a know it all music snob constantly making his own…

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As Above, So Below Review
Entertainment

As Above, So Below Review

William McPherson

What do you get when you take bits of the Blair Witch Project, Raiders of the Lost Ark, National Treasure, and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, cram them into a giant blender and hit “puree”? This movie; As Above, So Below. The main character here is a female Indiana Jones type searching for the mystical “Philosopher’s Stone” which after quickly solving a few Da Vinci Code like riddles with the help of her fellow history buff friend (who illegally repairs ancient clock towers in his down time) she…

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Savages
Entertainment

Savages Review

William McPherson

Two beach bums, one with a military past, and both in an open three way relationship with a hot blonde named Ophelia, start a homegrown marijuana business that becomes very successful. Said business attracts the wrong kind of attention from a very powerful Mexican drug cartel. So, together with the aid of a dirty DEA agent played by John Travolta, the trio will go to war against said Cartel, lead by Salma Hayeck. Also, Benicio Del Toro licks and occasionally rapes people. Ew. Oliver Stone, a…

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Mad Max Fury Road
Entertainment

Mad Max: Fury Road Review

William McPherson2 Comments

I saw this movie in 3D with my wife, who liked it far less than I did, feeling the movie was long on chase scenes and short on story. I say that up front for a little context, but personally I loved that the entire movie is just one long adrenaline rush. The story was started on the run and kept running throughout. Theron’s character Furiosa has taken the powerful Warlord Joe’s (C’mon really, just Joe?) bevy of slave brides in one of his own customized eighteen wheeler war tank. Joe in turn…

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Entertainment

Pompeii Review

William McPherson

79 A.D was a very bad year for the city of Pompeii. One of the worst natural disasters of the ancient world occurred as a killer Volcano named Vesuvius erupted and wiped out thousands upon thousands of lives. So now I guess enough time has passed to attempt to turn that tragedy into a silly romantic popcorn movie. I’m game anyway. Too bad that trashy 50s B-Movie vibe clashes with the modern corporate CGI fest that this movie descends into, but that’s the least of our worries here. Our hero Milo…

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That Awkward Moment
Entertainment

That Awkward Moment Review

William McPherson

Imagine if Sex and the City had been written by gay women about straight men instead of by gay men about straight women. Three best friends make a pact to not enter a relationship and just be tail chasing besties who share an apartment in New York City, but of course all of them wind up falling in love with one lady or another and their pact needlessly complicates what would otherwise be simple commonsense relationship progression. It may be possible to combine the genres of raunch-com and…

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The Purge Anarchy
Entertainment

The Purge: Anarchy Review

William McPherson

The Purge (2013) starring Ethan Hawke was one of my big disappointments. I thought the premise (all crime being legal for one night) was bloody brilliant, and had mucho potential for social commentary, plus a ton of groovy action in the vein of Escape from New York. Instead, the whole story took place in the house of one rich family on a rich neighborhood being tormented by other rich socialite college kids. This movie corrects those mistakes at least, as we finally get a good sprawling action…

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Inglourious Basterds
Entertainment

Inglourious Basterds Review

William McPherson

This story takes place in Nazi occupied Paris, where a young and beautiful blonde cinema owner has been tasked with hosting a big event for the entire Third Reich. At the same time, a Dirty Dozen like crew of Allied Nazi Hunters lead by Brad Pitt are looking for a way to end the way, and think they might just have it with this coming movie spectacle. Before Quentin Tarantino turned the horrors of slavery into a fun filled spaghetti western, he took the second World War and the holocaust and made…

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Security Movie
Entertainment

Security Review

William McPherson

‘Security’ is a movie that aims low and stays on target. Antonio Banderas, far removed from his days as the guitar case gunslinger in Desperado, plays a two dimensional archetype—a former soldier, struggling to find work to see his family who are forced to live two states away. The soldier finds work as an overnight security guard in a mall, where he joins a crew of early 20-something stereotypes—the douche, the dork, the nerd, and the drunk chick who quickly defer to his general badassery when…

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The Fate of the Furious
Entertainment

The Fate of the Furious Blu-ray Review

Gary Smith

Fate of the Furious, the eighth entry in the popular Fast and the Furious franchise, releases on Blu-ray today in the form of a combo pack. You can pick it up for $20 on Amazon, and that'll get you the Blu-ray, DVD, and two Digital HD versions of the film (the theatrical cut and the extended director's cut that is only available digitally). Those of you with a 4K TV or 4K Blu-ray player can spend an extra $5 and the get the 4K Ultra HD combo pack. The theatrical version of the film has a…

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