Archive for November, 2008

“2 Days” - If you’re going to kill yourself, you should make a movie about it. - (1 Comment)

By Rachel Beam, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

After ten years of struggling in the soulless cesspool known as Los Angeles, California, failed - yet remarkably talented - actor Paul Miller has decided to end it all. In lieu of a self-pitying suicide note, he enlists the help of his filmmaker friends to document the last two days of his life. Not believing Paul to be entirely serious, but wanting to be there at the zero hour just in case he is, controlling hipster co-director Stu jumps at the opportunity to be a part of the film and arrogantly invites along his USC film student friends to make a documentary of him making a documentary.

See full post

Total Yoga: The Flow Series — Earth - (No Comments)

By Courtney Llewellyn, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

I didn’t just watch “Total Yoga: The Flow Series — Earth,” I made every move along with my instructor. Or, at least, I tried to. As a beginner, I’ve found I’m nowhere near flexible and that I needed the video to help me through the hour-long exercise. Needing to constantly look at the screen kind of ruined the yoga experience, however.

See full post

You Gotti have Brotherhood in “Brooklyn Rules” - (No Comments)

By Rob Queen, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

In “Brooklyn Rules,” Michael (Freddie Prinze Jr.) narrates the bildungsroman of three best friends as they grow up in the New York district during the late 1970’s and 1980’s and up through John Gotti’s mob war. Michael is a bit of a scam artist, while Bobby (Jerry Ferrara) is a cheapskate “idiot savant” whose savvy includes bartering for a better deal, and Carmine (Scott Caan) is the one whose idolatry is the local mob boss, Caesar (the underused Alec Baldwin).

See full post

French Accents, Kisses, and Murders! Just What is this “Charade?” - (1 Comment)

By Maribeth Theroux, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

The thing I really liked about Charade is how the film is a little of everything: thriller, mystery, romance, comedy. Grant and Hepburn are strangely composed considering that the threat of murder is all around them. They find time for comedy, romance, and dinner on a riverboat. The least you can do is find time for Charade.

See full post

“A Matter of Taste:” Food for Thought - (No Comments)

By Richard Murphy, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

In A Matter of Taste (French, Une affaire de goût) Frédéric Delamont (Bernard Giraudeau) is a cool customer. Cool is not the word. He is cold, as in coldly calculating. This does not mean he is a cold fish. He can be affable and certainly charms the man he hires as his food taster. Nicolas Rivière (Jean-Pierre Lorit) is a nobody with excellent taste in food, if little else, and he is hired to insure Delamont is less offended than poisoned.

See full post

“Duck: The Carbine High Massacre:” A Fine Line Between Edgy and Plain Old Bad Taste - (No Comments)

By Rachel Beam, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Filmed shortly after the nightmare that occurred at Columbine High School, Duck! was the first (and by far the worst) movie that presumed to make sense of the tragedy. If you enjoyed Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine you might as well force yourself to sit through this piece of tripe in order to get a different take on the subject. Where one film exploits both victims and survivors, the other attempts to poke fun at the media responsible for exploiting both victims and survivors. A rather clever idea to satirize something that is so blatantly unfunny; unfortunately, it was an idea that landed in the incapable hands of William Hellfire (Derwin) and Joey Smack (Derick).

See full post

“Groupies:” Music, Mayhem, and Plaster Casts - (No Comments)

By Rachel Beam, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Filmed on location in 1970 at some of the most legendary rock clubs of the day, Groupies promises a wild ride through the lively underworld of late sixties and early seventies rock’n roll ass-grabbing. Unfortunately, it delivers little more than a vapid taste of an historical era that can never be recaptured.

See full post

“Imagination” - (No Comments)

By Courtney Llewellyn, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Having a great sense of imagination is something that is lauded in children but for some reason is seen as odd in adults. The film “Imagination” tackles that issue in a visually stunning way. Filmmakers and brothers Eric and Jeffrey Leiser use live action, stop motion animation and childlike animation to tell the story of twins Anna and Sarah, who both have physical handicaps that separate them from “the real world.” Anna has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, which hinders her ability to communicate with others and Sarah is blind. Together, they use their imagination to see the world in their own unique way.

See full post

“The Map of Sex and Love” - (2 Comments)

By Li Gu, posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

The movie opens with three threads, introducing the three protagonists respectively, which lead to their encounters and then follows them through their relations gradually taking shape through these encounters. The encounter of the three turns out to be a life-changing experience, as each is forced - in a friendly way - to confront his/her own secret.

See full post

“Night Scene” - (No Comments)

By Li Gu, posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008

A blend of fiction, mocumentary, and documentary by the Chinese avant-garde queer director/screenwriter Cui Zi’en. Like two of Cui’s previous works, Feeding Boys, Ayaya and Old Testament, Night Scene focuses on the condition of male prostitutes in contemporary Beijing. Unlike previous times, however, Cui offers us less fiction and theoretical rumination but much more realistic documentation - even if he sometimes tries to disrupt that very realism.

See full post