Archive for the Tag 'R'

HARRY BROWN – Reviewed by David

Don’t let the fancy-sounding English accents fool you. Harry Brown is a vigilante flick, pure and simple, a bleak and bloody blending of Death Wish and Gran Torino starring Michael Caine that just happens to be set in England.
Caine plays an ex-serviceman living in a South London neighborhood where gangs of drug-pushing punks [...]

THE SQUARE – Reviewed by David

As a movie, The Square, a low-budget Australian thriller produced sometime in 2008, is far less energetic than its DVD preview would have you believe, but is saved by a first-rate script that renders it reminiscent of the best noir flicks.

THE JONESES – Reviewed by Will

A lot more could have been done with the premise upon which The Joneses is built. The idea is clever and original: a sleeper cell of marketeers posing as an ideal nuclear family moves into an upscale suburban neighborhood. Their mission: to act as seductive models of materialist perfection, subtly provoking their [...]

TRIAGE – Reviewed by David

Triage is a solid if unspectacular war-photographer drama á la Under Fire or Salvador that, while not nearly as energetic as those films, contains some solid performances from a cast including Colin Farrell, Paz Vega and 86-year-old Christopher Lee.
Based on a book by war correspondent Scott Anderson, it’s set in 1988 and shows [...]

DEATH AT A FUNERAL – Reviewed by Noah

Death at a Funeral tells the wacky story of all the things that can go wrong when families come together to observe the loss of their patriarch.
Sound familiar?

KICK-ASS – Reviewed by Jeremy

When choosing a graphic novel to adapt into a screenplay, one must choose wisely. The effects of choosing a novel too complex or dry has often shown its rougher side (I’m speaking of films a la The Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Punisher War Zone). Kick-Ass has a simple plot that, though it may [...]

A PROPHET – Reviewed by J.D.

In the history of cinema, there have been few genres that have been as thoroughly examined as the gangster movie. Dating to the early days of silent film, when the German expressionists were likely the first true practitioners of the ‘noir’ aesthetic, there have always been a handful of directors [...]

REPO MEN – Reviewed by David

Under no circumstances should you confuse Repo Men with Repo Man. Sure, they both feature fair-haired actors whose characters repossess things for a living. But one is a fun cult flick from the ‘80s with Emilio Estevez. The one I’m reviewing here is a stale and somewhat repugnant sci-fi concoction starring Jude Law.
In [...]

VINCERE – Reviewed by Will

Italian cinema was once distinguished for its postwar “neorealism” movement, with films that were shot on location in a stripped down, almost documentary style, exemplified by titles like Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1946) and de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). Times seem to have changed, though not necessarily for the worse. With a [...]

GREENBERG – Reviewed by J.D.

As the American film industry drifts further into a sort of retarded infantilism–week after week of superheroes, television show remakes, stunted 80’s nostalgia for things that weren’t any good in the first place–it‘s important to remember that, on the fringes, there is still a filmmaker or two out there who is [...]

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