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Vital Signs (1990, Marisa Silver)
I’d forgotten grown men used to wear cut-off, midriff-revealing shirts. Adrian Pasdar does in the final scene of Vital Signs. It’s horrifying. Pasdar also bulks up throughout the picture, maybe for his...
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Bottle Shock (2008, Randall Miller)
I have to make a disclosure. I try to drink the highest Robert Parker rated wine I can afford. They’ve tended to be French. Actually, I think they’ve all been French. But whatever. Because Bottle Shock...
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Robocop 3 (1993, Fred Dekker)
It’s actually not hard to find nice things to say about Robocop 3. There’re about fifteen nice seconds of Phil Tippett stop-motion, Dekker’s got a neat way of shooting cars to give a sense of realism...
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Kate & Leopold (2001, James Mangold)
I unintentionally watched the Roger Ebert cut of Kate & Leopold. I originally saw it at a sneak preview with the plot intact. Ebert saw it around the same time and threatened to complain or...
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Presumed Innocent (1990, Alan J. Pakula)
I could, but will not, get into the idea Presumed Innocent is what studios were making as popular summer entertainment in the nineties. It’s simply to depressing to start that discussion. Instead, I’ll...
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Adventures in Babysitting (1987, Chris Columbus)
If it weren’t for the acting, Adventures in Babysitting would probably be more interesting as a cultural document than anything else. The way the film treats race is probably worth a couple sociology...
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Walk and Talk the Vote (2012, Michael Mayers)
Walk and Talk the Vote reunites the “West Wing” cast–including Martin Sheen as President Bartlet, which I wasn’t expecting, but a lot of it feels like it could have just been impersonators. The only...
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Agent Carter (2013, Louis D’Esposito)
Agent Carter is a terrible execution of a nice idea. The short is supposed to follow-up on Hayley Atwell’s character after the Captain America movie. A post-script for a supporting character… love that...
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A Perfect World (1993, Clint Eastwood)
A Perfect World runs almost two hours and twenty minutes (it does with end credits). The last act of the film is a seventeen or so minute showdown in real time. Until that point in the film, John Lee...
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Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele)
What’s particularly stunning about Get Out is how nimble director (and writer) Peele gets with the protagonist, Daniel Kaluuya, and the narrative distance to him. Peele’s very patient with his cuts....
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Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019, Michael Dougherty)
I wonder if, much like that one immortal monkey divining Borges’s dreams and half-dreams at dawn on August 14, 1934, one could assemble a list of all the action beats in Godzilla: King of the Monsters,...
View ArticleStudio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006) s01e01
I wish I were taking a rhetoric class so I could write a paper on whether “Studio 60” aged badly or poorly. I’ve never taken rhetoric and I’ve also never been great at first draft word choice so I’m...
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Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006) s01e02 – The Cold Open
The Cold Open is about Matthew Perry trying to write the cold open (the pre-credits sketch) for the first episode of ‘Studio 60’ he and pal Bradley Whitford are producing. The episode’s cold open is...
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The Cabin in the Woods (2011, Drew Goddard)
I didn’t have much hope for Cabin in the Woods; though, I mean, director and co-writer Drew Goddard… he’s gone on to stuff. Good stuff. Right? But if I’d known it was written in three days—it shows—and...
View ArticleAdventures in Babysitting (1987, Chris Columbus)
If it weren’t for the acting, Adventures in Babysitting would probably be more interesting as a cultural document than anything else. The way the film treats race is probably worth a couple sociology...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Walk and Talk the Vote (2012, Michael Mayers)
Walk and Talk the Vote reunites the “West Wing” cast–including Martin Sheen as President Bartlet, which I wasn’t expecting, but a lot of it feels like it could have just been impersonators. The only...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Agent Carter (2013, Louis D’Esposito)
Agent Carter is a terrible execution of a nice idea. The short is supposed to follow-up on Hayley Atwell’s character after the Captain America movie. A post-script for a supporting character… love that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Perfect World (1993, Clint Eastwood)
A Perfect World runs almost two hours and twenty minutes (it does with end credits). The last act of the film is a seventeen or so minute showdown in real time. Until that point in the film, John Lee...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele)
What’s particularly stunning about Get Out is how nimble director (and writer) Peele gets with the protagonist, Daniel Kaluuya, and the narrative distance to him. Peele’s very patient with his cuts....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019, Michael Dougherty)
I wonder if, much like that one immortal monkey divining Borges’s dreams and half-dreams at dawn on August 14, 1934, one could assemble a list of all the action beats in Godzilla: King of the Monsters,...
View Article
