Pudding Time! Archives: movies

Avert
posted by mph, 07/11/04, 10:20 PM
And to move it away from the meta just a hair: If you're feeling morose and unhappy over the sort of spam you've been getting... (more)
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Online vs. Print vs. Critic vs. Reviewer
posted by mph, 06/01/04, 08:50 PM
The Christian Science Monitor has tackled the question of online vs. print film critics/reviewers with faithful reportage on the predictable levels of eyebrow furrowing and... (more)
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The Film That Launche... Never Mind (Updated, Now With More Loathing!)
posted by mph, 05/30/04, 09:10 PM
Had the good fortune of Dunetchka volunteering to babysit this afternoon. Decided to see "Troy," because it was supposed to be, if nothing else, a... (more)
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Anvil of Stars, Firefly, Sopranos, etc.
posted by mph, 05/22/04, 11:52 PM
I just finished Greg Bear's "Forge of God" and "Anvil of Stars." The first is an end-o'-the-world novel in the tradition of "Footfall" with a... (more)
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O.k., Quentin... We're Even
posted by mph, 04/18/04, 11:26 PM
Alison's visiting folks babysat while Al and I went to the movies last night. We went to see Kill Bill Volume II after a little... (more)
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Filthy Lives!
posted by mph, 02/27/04, 04:56 PM
Happy to see a comment on an old entry noting that the Filthy Critic is back in business after hanging it up for a while.... (more)
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Movie "Yay!"
posted by mph, 02/03/04, 10:44 AM
*squeeeaaallll* "Henry Fool" is on DVD! I should have blogmarked this, but it's a red letter day for me. Definitely "above the fold" news.... (more)
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Every Man a Murnau
posted by mph, 01/20/04, 02:50 PM
In the past few days I've been reading up on the digital video scene, which includes a lot of forays into online reviews of... (more)
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"Fetching Roy"
posted by mph, 01/19/04, 12:19 AM
As promised, a documentary of our trip to retrieve Roy from the vet: "Fetching Roy" (5:49, Quicktime, ~20MB) There's also a smaller version: (5:49,... (more)
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RotK Note
posted by mph, 12/19/03, 11:30 PM
Spent Wednesday afternoon standing in line for or watching "Return of the King" on the Lloyd Center big screen. It rocked my world, and it... (more)
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Feeding the Troll
posted by mph, 12/16/03, 11:44 AM
Sometimes a work of trollery needs to be acknowledged. Take, for instance, San Diego Union-Tribune film critic David Elliot, who really hated "Return of the... (more)
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Ranking the Guest Mockumentaries
posted by mph, 12/11/03, 09:31 AM
Recently finally got around to seeing "Waiting for Guffman", rounding out my viewings of the mockumentaries with Christopher Guest somewhere in them. IMDB purists... (more)
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Fundamentalist Galactica
posted by mph, 12/10/03, 04:49 PM
Continuing the post-Galactica web-crawl is this interview between Ron Moore, who wrote the Sci-Fi remake, and the maintainers of Cylon.org, a Galactica fan site. Moore's... (more)
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CattleCar Galaxica
posted by mph, 12/10/03, 12:22 AM
Just wrapped up a viewing of the second half of SciFi's "Battlestar Galactica" with the obligatory web crawl to fan sites. Every generation needs... (more)
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"A Man and a Woman"
posted by mph, 12/03/03, 10:44 AM
Saw "A Man and a Woman" in class tonight. French. Sharp look from woman next to me when I snorted as the lovers ran toward... (more)
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The Glued Towers
posted by mph, 11/29/03, 04:46 PM
Just finished a viewing of "The Two Towers" (after whetting our appetites with "The Fellowship of the Ring" yesterday). As I'd hoped when I made... (more)
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Saved for Thanksgiving
posted by mph, 11/25/03, 09:24 AM
If Polytropos has it right, it's a tragedy that my recently purchased "Two Towers" special edition is still sitting in the shrink-wrap. On the... (more)
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One More and I'll Quit Harping
posted by mph, 11/14/03, 10:06 PM
Me: And the so-called "religious allegory." Oh! She's named "Trinity!" It must be a fucking allegory. News flash: I can name a pair of... (more)
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Triumph of the Will
posted by mph, 11/13/03, 08:38 PM
Sam just told me he hasn't bothered to go see "The Matrix Revolutions" and probably won't. Why didn't I think of that?... (more)
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No Wonder the Reviewers Hate It
posted by mph, 11/11/03, 12:47 AM
Roger Ebert makes a compelling case for Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" in the face of a chilly general reception: "Of course a movie about a... (more)
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True That
posted by mph, 11/10/03, 02:38 PM
"Reason" takes its shot at "Matrix Revolutions": "When critics comment on the Gnostic-conspiracy genre, they usually cite the novelist Philip K. Dick as its patron... (more)
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The Matrix: Revolting
posted by mph, 11/09/03, 03:42 PM
"The Matrix Revolutions" was an enervating, noisy mess that left me wondering whether any amount of improvement to the content could have overcome the trainwreck form. But only long enough to realize I was too disappointed to care. (more)
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Matrix Devolutions
posted by mph, 11/05/03, 12:01 PM
Yow. It looks like "Matrix Revolutions" might be a disaster. The Slashdolts are having a mixed reaction, Salon's just plain turned off (mandatory ad... (more)
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Lost in Translation (2003)
posted by mph, 11/03/03, 03:12 PM
"Lost in Translation" gives us a better-and-better Bill Murray, and a great soundtrack, too. (more)
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Kill something, anyhow.
posted by mph, 10/11/03, 12:03 AM
Back from the cheap show of "Kill Bill." After "Jackie Brown," I thought Quentin Tarantino had perhaps grown up a little. In fact, I almost... (more)
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All You Can Eat
posted by mph, 10/04/03, 10:53 PM
At some point in the past year, I picked up the habit of renting or borrowing entire t.v. series seasons. I think it started when... (more)
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Commence Quivering
posted by mph, 09/29/03, 01:45 PM
The trailer for "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" went up earlier today. If your affections for Peter Jackson's films remain unsullied... (more)
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Underworld Schmunderworld
posted by mph, 09/20/03, 12:24 AM
Back from a trip to see "Underworld," the movie that had White Wolf's knickers in a twist over possible copyright infringement. It was flatly awful.... (more)
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The Death of the Director
posted by mph, 09/14/03, 08:42 PM
"Lights, Camera, Action. Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology" is some moderately entertaining squawking about the rise of film theory in film schools, and the rarified language... (more)
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Why The Wachowski Bros. Lost Two of My Dollars
posted by mph, 09/13/03, 08:32 AM
Well, I dropped the whole "review anything and everything viewed" schtick a while back, but I'm coming back from the theater pleasantly buzzed this evening,... (more)
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Death of a Critic
posted by mph, 09/11/03, 07:15 AM
The Filthy Critic is Dead, Matt Weatherford is Not, reports Ben Garvey. Shame that Filthy's gone. If you never got to know him, here's an... (more)
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Hey! You Put Your Garou in My Ventru!
posted by mph, 09/09/03, 02:51 AM
"You could say he was a brave man. Hell... you could say he was a bicycle. See? You could say just about anything you... (more)
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Zip-a-dee-doo-dah
posted by mph, 07/14/03, 07:08 AM
Back, as Phil noted, from a week on vacation in assorted places including Yellowstone National Park. Part of my first day back was spent... (more)
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when the wind blows...
posted by pk, 06/16/03, 11:19 PM
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were among those celebrities singled out for special criticism for having the gall to take advantage of their status... (more)
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Low Hanging Fruit
posted by mph, 05/20/03, 04:40 PM
Michael B. sent a link to a story about "The Matrix" driving people to crime. It includes a comment from Lawrence Fishburne: "There is no... (more)
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Mr. Hall, Your Men... Are Already... Dead.
posted by mph, 05/20/03, 03:55 PM
So, a while back a certain prominent site I was editing ended up getting owned because we didn't patch the SSH CRC-32 bug in... (more)
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Three O'Clock High (1987)
posted by mph, 05/19/03, 02:02 AM
Haven't written up many movies for a while but I caught "Three O'Clock High" over the weekend and feel like mentioning it: I think... (more)
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Sub-tul Flos'fee
posted by mph, 05/07/03, 08:24 PM
Slashdot links to the first Matrix Reloaded review. Highlight of the Slashdot item is the poster, who says "What I liked most about the original... (more)
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The New Canon Redux
posted by mph, 04/17/03, 11:09 AM
Couple of mails re: the new film canon make more comment useful: The sample group on which the author draws isn't some etablished critical... (more)
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The New Canon
posted by mph, 04/15/03, 10:20 PM
What's up with the film canon? According to this article: "...Casablanca and Citizen Kane don't matter so much anymore, even if you think they... (more)
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Spirited Away
posted by mph, 03/27/03, 10:54 PM
Spirited Away is getting a wider theatrical run in the wake of its Oscar win. This isn't so much a review as a "if... (more)
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The Intersection of Folk Art and Kitsch
posted by mph, 03/14/03, 10:40 AM
Here's a gallery of hand-painted, promotional posters for movies: The site explains that the posters were "born from the need to advertise small-scale mobile... (more)
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From Portland With Love, The Student Who Came In From The Rain, etc.
posted by mph, 03/13/03, 08:11 AM
Well, the term's almost over. The most interesting class (at least in terms of how much information was imparted or factored in across a... (more)
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M Butterfly (1993)
posted by mph, 02/21/03, 02:40 PM
M Butterfly started life as a reasonably successful Broadway production written by David Henry Hwang. The play concerned itself with the sorts of issues raised... (more)
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In Like Flint (1967)
posted by mph, 02/20/03, 08:20 AM
James Coburn is a genius in this movie, a parody of Bond flicks that features a plot by feminist beauty salon owners to take over... (more)
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Cinema Suits
posted by mph, 02/20/03, 07:50 AM
Irritated by the ten minutes worth of ads they have to sit through before a film starts, people are beginning to sue: "One of... (more)
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Bullets of Love (2001)
posted by mph, 02/16/03, 01:13 PM
Wow... sort of a "Solaris meets The Killer" deal from Hong Kong. When a cop and his prosecutor girlfriend put away a crime lord,... (more)
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Bamboozled (2000)
posted by mph, 02/16/03, 01:38 AM
"Scabrous" seemed to win the sweepstakes for favorite critical descriptive when Bamboozled came out in 2000. From there, consensus broke down as reviewers struggled with... (more)
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The Great Escape (1963)
posted by mph, 02/16/03, 12:31 AM
Take every vintage tough guy from Coburn to Bronson, stick them in a German POW camp, and give them three hours to get out,... (more)
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Shellhead
posted by mph, 02/13/03, 08:26 AM
Before Wolverine captured the hearts of insecure adolescent boys with his near-total invulnerability and barely supressed berserker rage, there was Iron Man. It's pretty... (more)
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Modesty Blaise (1966)
posted by mph, 02/12/03, 10:42 PM
It's hard to believe that the production team behind Barbarella didn't decide to do their film with the idea that they'd somehow improve on... (more)
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Ronin (1998)
posted by mph, 02/09/03, 12:36 PM
Post-Cold War France is the setting for this spy film about ex-spies trying to make a living now that no one needs them anymore.... (more)
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Red Dawn (1984)
posted by mph, 02/09/03, 11:59 AM
If you're wondering how much longer you'll be able to stand the "current political climate", a viewing of Red Dawn will remind you that... (more)
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Funeral in Berlin (1966)
posted by mph, 02/09/03, 11:27 AM
If From Russia With Love established one end of the "spy film" genre with its apolitical, larky approach to international espionage, and The Spy... (more)
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The Quiller Memorandum (1966)
posted by mph, 02/09/03, 11:11 AM
The Quiller Memorandum is a spy movie with a few differences from much of the rest of the genre that make it seem a... (more)
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The Joy Luck Club (1993)
posted by mph, 02/09/03, 10:59 AM
The Joy Luck Club is a tear-jerker that sometimes comes off as blatantly and shamelessly manipulative. If you can get past the manipulation, you'll... (more)
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Adaptation (2002)
posted by mph, 01/25/03, 10:03 PM
Maybe something more later, but for now we log it and move on. Outline: Nicholas Cage is great. It's from the same people who... (more)
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Twin Warriors (aka The Tai Chi Master) (1993)
posted by mph, 01/25/03, 12:38 AM
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The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965)
posted by mph, 01/22/03, 11:59 PM
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25th Hour (2002)
posted by mph, 01/22/03, 12:18 AM
One of the things I like best about Spike Lee is his exploration of the nuances of simple human different-ness and its effect on... (more)
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La Femme Nikita (1990)
posted by mph, 01/21/03, 11:46 PM
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The Killer (1989)
posted by mph, 01/19/03, 11:33 PM
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From Russia With Love (1963)
posted by mph, 01/15/03, 11:05 PM
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Flower Drum Song
posted by mph, 01/15/03, 12:48 AM
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Critic Bites Back
posted by mph, 01/13/03, 10:20 PM
Salon critic Charles Taylor is miffed that Variety EiC Peter Bart doesn't like film critics, and it gets nasty before it gets nice: "At... (more)
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Arwen: Defender of Rohan
posted by mph, 01/13/03, 05:31 PM
So, one of the huffy fan issues during the production of Lord of the Rings was the presence of Arwen at Helm's Deep which,... (more)
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Seven Samurai
posted by mph, 01/12/03, 11:28 PM
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There's Something About Mary
posted by mph, 01/12/03, 10:05 PM
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About Schmidt
posted by mph, 01/12/03, 04:59 PM
People grumbled and complained when Jack Nicholson refused to "act his age" a while back, so he is now and it's pretty good to... (more)
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The Third Man (1949)
posted by mph, 01/10/03, 10:01 PM
This pocket review kicks off the Winter '03 season as I have one class on "Spy Movies of the '60s" and another on "Asian-American Cinema."... (more)
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Peter Jackson Crosses the Invisible Line
posted by mph, 01/08/03, 11:19 AM
O.k... I can take "Aragorn over the cliff," I can take "Agent Elrond," I can take "Faramir the Bastard," and I can take dwarf... (more)
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Catch Me If You Can
posted by mph, 01/05/03, 11:22 PM
Catch Me If You Can, coupled with Gangs of New York goes a long way toward improving my mood toward Leonardo DiCaprio. It's a... (more)
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Far From Heaven
posted by mph, 12/29/02, 12:32 AM
The common line is that this movie is a tribute of sorts, in particular to the domestic dramas of Douglas Sirk, none of which I've... (more)
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Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
posted by mph, 12/26/02, 07:28 PM
Much better than its predecessor, The Road Warrior established the basic look for much that came after it. If you see it on DVD,... (more)
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Talkin' Faramir With Peter Jackson
posted by mph, 12/25/02, 09:41 PM
One of the more hotly disputed changes from book to film in The Two Towers was the way Peter Jackson scuffed up Faramir. He's... (more)
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Mad Max
posted by mph, 12/25/02, 08:14 PM
So, in the future, in the time before everybody looks like a member of Loverboy and gets their own androgynous bike punk, the highways are... (more)
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Pulp Fiction
posted by mph, 12/25/02, 07:04 PM
O.k. It's interesting. There are some funny moments. It introduced the phrase "I'm gonna get medieval on your ass" to the vernacular. It showed... (more)
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Glengarry Glen Ross
posted by mph, 12/24/02, 08:59 PM
James Foley directs a David Mamet screenplay, which is based on Mamet's play. The cast is excellent, but the presence of Al Pacino's "why emote... (more)
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"I Didn't Like the Elf Chick..."
posted by mph, 12/23/02, 10:53 PM
.... but I did feel sorry for her when her boyfriend cheated on her. You know, the dark-haired guy." (Teenager #1) "He didn't cheat... (more)
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Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
posted by mph, 12/22/02, 09:42 PM
O.k. Call it a 3.99, since it isn't as good as The Fellowship of the Ring, but it's still wonderful. Some purists are in an... (more)
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Gangs of New York
posted by mph, 12/22/02, 01:05 AM
Martin Scorsese considers New York's Five Points slum and the bloody conflict between Irish immigrants and "natives," with the climax of the film latching... (more)
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Star Trek: Nemesis
posted by mph, 12/16/02, 12:19 AM
Once upon a time, I liked Star Trek movies enough that I made opening night of five or six of them in a row.... (more)
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Brush Up On Your Tolkienology
posted by mph, 12/14/02, 11:13 AM
Only five days to go before The Two Towers and you never got around to reading The Complete Guide to Middle Earth? Don't get... (more)
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"Garbage men don't try to sell us skin care products...."
posted by mph, 12/13/02, 02:45 AM
The Captive Motion Picture Audience of America is hopping mad over the tv-style ads showing before movies at the cinema. One nice part of... (more)
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Stargate
posted by mph, 12/09/02, 01:00 AM
I racked my brain trying to remember why I liked this movie after rewatching about 90% of it last night before deciding conversation with my... (more)
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Good Gus Meeting
posted by mph, 12/06/02, 02:15 AM
Got to meet Gus Van Sant, director of Drugstore Cowboy and other good movies, this evening.... (more)
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Good Will Hunting
posted by mph, 12/05/02, 11:34 PM
Class Requirement. One of my classmates said he decided to do his final paper on this movie because of its near total conventionality, which I'm... (more)
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Solaris (2002)
posted by mph, 11/30/02, 11:41 PM
According to WIRED, there are some unhappy purists in the world thanks to this adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's book. My Lem reading hasn't included... (more)
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Near Dark
posted by mph, 11/30/02, 01:10 AM
Near Dark is an obscure vampire flick that both never uses the word "vampire" and rescues the whole idea from the Rice-ian "goth moper."... (more)
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Die Another Day
posted by mph, 11/28/02, 12:01 AM
The 007 franchise rises up from the tar pit, mastodon-like and lizardy and promptly collapses, smashing all of its own internal organs into a putrescent... (more)
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anticipation.... mounting....
posted by mph, 11/25/02, 03:55 PM
Popular Science devotes five pages to 'Massive', the software driving the battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies: Until recently, relatively simple simulations... (more)
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Braveheart
posted by mph, 11/24/02, 08:26 PM
Mel Gibson's "historical" epic has a few good moments, some good costumes, impressive battle scenes, and a 97 hour running time that takes us... (more)
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Lord of the Rings: The Felllowship of the Ring
posted by mph, 11/24/02, 10:54 AM
This movie can't go to 11 yet, because we have two more installments to go. It gets a four, though, because director Peter Jackson, confronted... (more)
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Flash Gordon
posted by mph, 11/24/02, 10:38 AM
1980 Dino de Laurentis crack at the classic serial/comics. Prepared for a plod, I was pretty happy with this one (hence the bestowal of... (more)
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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
posted by mph, 11/24/02, 10:26 AM
1979 Glen Larson remake of the old Buck Rogers serial that went on to be a tv show for a two years. Chief distinction is... (more)
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Dahmer
posted by mph, 11/23/02, 01:32 AM
Falls short of three stars on the nonexistent pace, but it's a respectable movie that is lurid only because we all know what the... (more)
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PuddingFlicks set up and seeded
posted by mph, 11/22/02, 01:00 AM
Realizing that I'm both in class with a mandatory film-a-week diet and have a more general and standing flick or two or three a... (more)
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Erin Brockovich
posted by mph, 11/21/02, 11:49 PM
Class required viewing. I didn't want to like this one, but an hour trapped in a room with a hyper-caffeinated screenwriter convinced me that there's... (more)
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Hookers at the Point
posted by mph, 11/19/02, 02:46 PM
Rated down the middle. The director is following up on his documentary Pimps Up, Ho's Down by concentrating on the hookers this time. It's disjointed... (more)
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Spy Kids
posted by mph, 11/18/02, 02:37 PM
A fun 'family' movie from Robert Rodriguez of El Mariachi and From Dusk 'Til Dawn. Antonio Banderas does ok at self-satire, the kid acting... (more)
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
posted by mph, 11/17/02, 02:27 PM
Solid three stars for a solid production. Loses some value as an adaptation by going for plot and visual faithfulness at the expense of tougher... (more)
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8 Mile
posted by mph, 11/16/02, 02:31 PM
Eminem gets rehabilitated by Hollywood. High production values. The women in this movie suck (as characters, and Kim Basinger has seen better turns). Rousing... (more)
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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
posted by mph, 11/12/02, 02:48 PM
Kirk saves some whales by travelling back in time. Second-favorite Trek movie. Fun for the cast. Female love interest/plot driver is so awful they should... (more)
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Spirited Away
posted by mph, 11/03/02, 02:32 PM
Animated feature from Princess Mononoke director. Gorgeous, enchanting, compelling.... (more)
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Sixth Sense
posted by mph, 10/31/02, 02:53 PM
Class requirement. It becomes harder and harder to be nice to M. Night Shyamalan's work as time goes by because there's a growing question of... (more)
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Reservoir Dogs
posted by mph, 10/24/02, 02:55 PM
Class requirement. Points for novelty and atmosphere. Points off for it opening the portal to hell from which the gibbering Tarantino monkey-demon escaped.... (more)
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Film Notes: Reservoir Dogs
posted by mph, 10/22/02, 10:47 PM
Part of this term's class, "Writing About Film," involves a short, "impressionistic" essay on one of the movies under discussion. I picked Reservoir Dogs,... (more)
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Igby Goes Down
posted by mph, 10/20/02, 02:41 PM
Coming-o'-Age flick with good Jeff Goldblum leching. A little Rushmore, a little Catcher in the Rye.... (more)
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Secretary
posted by mph, 10/19/02, 02:38 PM
Wow. Interesting exploration of the world of sadomasochism that doesn't make fun of its subjects and allows even "non-kink" people to empathize. It's a... (more)
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Fight Club
posted by mph, 10/17/02, 02:58 PM
Troubling to hang a hat on this. "Iron John" types nod in agreement at gender warrior bullshit spewing from Brad Pitt's mouth, which either means... (more)
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Chinatown
posted by mph, 10/10/02, 02:59 PM
Class requirement. '70s "neo-noir" with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. Let's All Go to the Lobby... (more)
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As Promised: Red Dragon Capsule
posted by mph, 10/07/02, 06:26 PM
A promised capsule review of Red Dragon.... (more)
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PreCog Film Snark: Red Dragon
posted by mph, 10/05/02, 06:29 PM
Red Dragon is about more than just being an excuse to make another sucky followup to Silence of the Lambs.... (more)
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Red Dragon
posted by mph, 10/01/02, 02:43 PM
Awful. Redeemed in a small way by the cinematography, drug screaming into hell by the movie's own cultural implications and essential pointlessness.... (more)
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Pocket Review: Undisputed
posted by mph, 09/07/02, 04:26 PM
I rationalized a visit to Undisputed on the foundation of two things: it's a prison movie, and it's a boxing movie. The only thing... (more)
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