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Bad Lieutenant (1992): A
Twelve minutes and twenty-one seconds into Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara has Harvey Keitel’s nameless dirty cop prance about in the nude, pathetically weeping with his arms outstretched, in a room shared by two whores. What follows is a descent into sinful sordidness of the most spectacular sort, with Keitel – on the trail of two…
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Serenity (2005): B
Having never watched Firefly – Joss Whedon’s short-lived Old West-meets-Star Trek TV series – I’m in no position to make comparisons between it and Whedon’s cinematic spin-off Serenity. On its own, however, this satisfying science-fiction saga has enough richly drawn characters and clever writing to make up for the inescapable impression that it’s a condensed…
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Flightplan (2005): C
Back in Panic Room protective mommy mode, Jodie Foster searches for her missing child on an enormous airplane in Flightplan, a knuckleheaded thriller that apes David Fincher’s style and repugnantly exploits contemporary terrorism-related anxieties for cheap suspense. Accompanying her dead husband’s body from Germany to Long Island, mourning widow Kyle Pratt (Foster) finds her sanity…
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Friends with Money (2006): C+
Despite its focus on character above plot, Nicole Holofcener’s Friends with Money somehow fails to feature protagonists who boast more than a figurative purpose. Four girlfriends regularly meet for dinner to overtly discuss each others’ personal problems and covertly express their own neurotic hang-ups: fashionista and fag-hag Jane (Frances McDormand) no longer washes her hair…
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King of New York (1990): B+
Though disavowed by director Abel Ferrara (on a recent DVD commentary track) as polished to the point of being “fascistic,” King of New York remains deliciously indecent, its extravagantly stylish mise-en-scène and cast of well-known faces doing nothing to overshadow the rampant degeneracy and moral/spiritual confliction that permeates this urban gangster saga. Ruthless drug kingpin…
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B Noir at Film Forum
From May 6 – June 15, NYC’s Film Forum will be presenting 70 classic and rare film noirs as part of their “B Noir” series. To celebrate this awesome event, Slant magazine is presenting capsule reviews of numerous selections from the program, including eleven written by yours truly. For those New Yorkers who love crime…
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Monday Update
Though I spent most of last week writing capsule reviews for Slant magazine’s feature on Film Forum’s ongoing “B Noir” series (links to come), I did find the time to squeeze in four other reviews, including two new wide releases and a review of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker for Slant’s 100 Essential Films feature. Out Now:…
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Typepad Headaches
The reason I’ve had to republish the Alphabetical Review Archive – which still appears in the category listed to the left – is that Typepad’s service decided to go all screwy on me last night while I was attempting to update the archive with a link to my latest review (for L’Auberge Espagnol, found below).…
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Alphabetical Review Archive
A 0s & 1s (Slant magazine)1/3 (Slant magazine) 2 Days in Paris (Slant magazine) 2 Fast 2 Furious (Slant magazine)3 3 Women (Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) 3:10 to Yuma (1957) 3:10 to Yuma (2007) (Slant magazine) 4 (Slant magazine) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 5×2 (filmcritic.com) 7 Years (Slant magazine) 9 9 Star Hotel…
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L’Auberge Espagnole (2002): C+
L’Auberge Espagnole (aka “The Spanish Apartment”) offers up romantic comedy with a multicultural coming-of-age twist, following French economics student Xavier (Romain Duris) as he travels to Spain and shacks up with a diverse group of Germans, Brits, Italians and Spaniards. It’s love and maturation U.N.-style, and in director Cédric Klapisch’s hands, Xavier’s story is a…
