Latest posts
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Horatio Hornblower
The trick with any discussion of this movie will be to divorce it from the very powerful childhood memories I have of the novel series upon which it is loosely based. I had read books before I came to C.S. Forester’s historical fiction, but they were of a decidedly more juvenile bent. Works like The…
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3 Ninjas
The tag for this movie touts it as a cross between “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Home Alone” and honestly that might have been the entirety of the pitch meeting. Everything from the goofy and inept home invaders to the theme summarizing pure 90s rap that plays over the credits shows the DNA that was…
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Never Been Kissed
This movie has many performances that help to hold it together and give it a charm all of its own, but, from the outset, its success or failure was going to rest almost exclusively on its lead. I’m very pleased to say that Drew Barrymore is more than equal to that task, and what can…
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Britney Spears: Live and More
Dear Lord that smile…alright this will not be so easy a thing to review as a movie, and neither is it so straightforward as a concert recording, for it is really neither. What this DVD is in reality is one part concert, one part behind the scenes travelog, and one part music video/sketch catalog. The…
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Rush Hour
At first glance this movie might appear to be a paint by numbers odd-couple. Chris Tucker doing variations on a theme in the key of Axel Foley while Jackie Chan plays up the fish-out-of-water elements of the east meets west buddy cop scenario could have felt rote from the outset, yet, pleasantly, this trek down…
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She’s All That
Back to highschool again for a movie that is nothing but surprises. On its face one is tempted to roll one’s eyes at the entire scenario. The most popular boy in the school, bristling for having been dumped over spring break, makes an egotistical boast that he could make any girl in school the next…
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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
How does one begin to discuss this movie. I have never been a consumer of the game series so that tangent of conversation is denied me, but, at first glance, this is a film that is trying to do a couple of things. On the one hand it seems to want to be a globe-trotting,…
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Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Pros: It will be hard to catalog everything that is laudable about this work and keep this review to a readable length. I hesitate to call any work obligatory reading, but I can think of no manner of person who would not be better off having done so. The simplicity, clarity, thoroughness of this examination…
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The Phantom
The plot a mess, the characters flat, the music generic, and the fight choreography uninspired…and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Adventure was on the mind the moment pen struck paper for this one and it follows through with every breath until the last of the final credits fade from screen. There’s something so refreshing about…
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Josh and S.A.M
“You’re in my damn room”, it was the only scene, the only moment, that I remembered from this movie. I guess there are just some things that can become tragically indelible to a ten year old because, although my memory had it errantly transcribed as “you’re in my god damn room”, I have been revisited…
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The Wizard
This is an unbelievably fascinating cultural artifact, and the veins of discussion are so numerous that it is difficult to know where to start. On the most basic and apparent level, this movie is a ninety minute Nintendo commercial, and I don’t say that to be dismissive as even this element has layers that demand…
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The Rundown
There is no shortage of content here as the filmmakers have given their best effort to fit a one last mission, an odd couple, a treasure hunt, and a jungle rebellion into a runtime hardly a breath over 100 minutes, and, with varying degrees of success, seems to find just enough room. What’s more, is…
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I, Robot
I have to admit that I’m nowhere near as familiar with the work of Isaac Asimov as I should be; Foundation is the only novel of his that I have read, so I have no idea what resemblance, if any, this movie bears to the book that inspired it. However, as I try not to…
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes
I remember being pleasantly surprised the first time I saw this movie in the theater, and I’m glad to say that the experience holds here. I had been a fan of both the original 1968 film and the novel before Tim Burton’s perhaps overly maligned attempted reboot in 2001, so my expectations were measured going…
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The Flash
It took me more than a little while to work up the courage to tackle this one. My excitement for it has been considerably dulled by a rash of rather disappointing comic book movies, and it’s unfortunate that a movie should suffer for the sins of its siblings, but that seems to be the nature…
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The Big Boss
It is supremely difficult to discuss this movie in any meaningful way and divorce it from my childhood association with both it and its genre. We had a vhs boxed set which included this film which was a permanent fixture in the pine box that sat in front of our couch and housed our eclectic…
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A Lot Like Christmas
I guess this is just the sort of day today is proving to be, and I won’t lie, like Terri Hatcher before her, Maggie Lawson’s name was in no small way a magnetic draw (some criteria must be used when trying to select among such a prolific genre, and getting to see a Psych alumni…
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How to Fall in Love by Christmas
Putting aside the cringe-inducing name change that Roku foisted on the film in a characteristically soulless fashion, (by Christmas transformed to by the Holidays) this is in every way a cute little Christmas movie. Everything about this type of film is determined by the attitude from which it is approached. It is easy to see…