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I thought I had this film figured out from the trailers, but thankfully - John Patrick Shanley's DOUBT is far more intricate than a 2 minute trailer. Not as many films are these days, but this one is.
From the trailer, I thought this film was about an over-bearing bitch of a nun, played by Meryl Streep, accusing a nice lenient and thoughtful Father, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, of being a child buggerer wrongfully.
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When I scheduled this film at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 10, I paired it with the Bogart classic WWII film SAHARA, a thrilling adventure in the desert during the heat of Panzer attacks and tank warfare. Well, VALKYRIE kinda picks up right at the end of SAHARA. Going from classic Black & White to digitally projected eye-popping color... well, the MGM logo had never seemed so crisp or so colorful... ever. The Nazi red leapt out of the screen. And the sound - well, that opening attack in the desert was just brutal.
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Frank Miller's THE SPIRIT.
THE SPIRIT is a film that I kinda enjoyed in spite of a great many problems. And even as I enjoyed what I did enjoy, I recognize that what I did enjoy about it would probably rub almost everyone else wrong.
Frank Miller's SPIRIT is Frank's attempt to do justice to one of his heroes' works. The film LOOKS gorgeous, although the aesthetic isn't right for the material. Going the SIN CITY route - for what cried out to be a technicolor super noir... well, it made me a bit sad, although graphically it does look spectacular.
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A strange thing happened on my way to ridicule my wife’s love for TWILIGHT… I kinda sorta fell a little in love too.
I’m a softy, I admit it. I love romance, be it silly or serious… momentary or eternal. I’m a sucker for stories about people that shouldn’t be together that just… despite the order of the food chain, find a reason to fight their natural instincts and… well… get it on.
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Oh I love this James Bond.
I sat down today to watch CASINO ROYALE in Blu-Ray, then drove across town for the sold out midnight show of QUANTUM OF SOLACE. It seems that nobody at Sony particularly wanted me to see this film early, but that’s alright – this audience was holy shit great to see the movie with.
But you don’t want to hear about the audience, or the new trailers for STAR TREK, WATCHMEN or THE SPIRIT that we saw. No – you turned to this page to see where I come down on QUANTUM OF SOLACE.
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I’m on record of feeling that George W Bush is definitely the worst President of my 36 year life time and arguably the worst in American History. On a personal level, I hate the guy. He may be “Born Again,” but in his eyes I still see the coke-snorting alcoholic Frat Rat that he was in his youth. I hold the Presidency as a place for intelligent, wise and thoughtful folks. Going with your gut bullshit isn’t how to govern or lead this country, much less the world.
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It wasn’t that long ago that I had very little interest in seeing a movie called ROLE MODELS. It seemed from the first trailer to be a saccharine sweet buddy film about grown children that learn to become MEN. And that stuff, like saccharine… gives ya cancer. I’m serious. If you just watch films about juvenile young men putting their childish sides aside… you will develop EYE CANCER.
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A post-apocalyptic children’s film about the Morlock existence of humanity after… the big… whatever happened. That’s CITY OF EMBER. At no point do we know what year the world came to an end. Nor do we know what year the City of Ember was constructed or inhabited. We know from the pre-credit sequence that it seemed to have been made years before the end. The concept was that the people of Ember knew nothing of the outside world, so that when the outside world came to an end, they would not feel the loss for what was lost.
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I tell you – I knew it when I first saw THE SALTON SEA that DJ Caruso was a filmmaker to watch, but then he went through a rough patch of just not being teamed up with the right material. Then we had that great DISTURBIA screening at SXSW – where the film that looked like a total ripoff of REAR WINDOW, from a Teen vantage point – turned out to be… well, pretty much a ripoff of REAR WINDOW from a Teen vantage point… only, it not only didn’t suck, but was incredibly entertaining.
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Hey folks, Harry here… FANTASTIC FEST is that. A Fantastic Fest. There’s so much going on that I’ve completely lost track of family and friends. I mean, allegedly Moriarty is here. I’ve seen him like… three times. I friggin flew him in for the fest because we never get to see each other these days and figured 8 days of Fantastic Fest would provide ample time to hook up and catch up.
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Hey folks, Harry here at FANTASTIC FEST 2008 - year four. Saw 4 films today - Kevin Smith's hilariously raunchy ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO is going to hurt some folks when it starts its rib-cracking run here soon. The final version of FANBOYS is just the fun film they set out to make and was an oddly emotional screening tonight - to finally see this movie in front of an Austin audience.
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God, I love the Coen Brothers!
Their films are consistently amongst my favorite film experiences. In their own way, the Coens are critics. Except, they don’t write criticism in a newspaper or upon any blog – and they don’t do anything so low brow as to actually say what they’re criticizing, but their films are what they have to say about genres, styles, literature, society, regions and the world we live in.
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SEX DRIVE is a film that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I didn’t really know who anybody in it was. I wasn’t familiar with any of the talent behind the film – and the trailers and red band material were funny, but what if that was as good as it got?
Right now we’ve got a wealth of wonderful comedy material coming from folks like Kevin Smith and the Judd Apatow Mafia – but this could have been just some knock off of SUPERBAD and it might just be a pale comparison.
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I’ve never hated a STAR WARS film before. I have weathered Jar Jar and any number of Ewoks. I even liked and loved them. I survived Hayden and a wooden Portman. I even accepted Jake Lloyd. I handled all that because it felt like STAR WARS.
I can accept all of Lucas’ flaws, so long as at its heart it felt like Star Wars. I can deal with politics in Star Wars. I can deal with trade skirmishes in Star Wars. I can deal with musical numbers, breathing in the vacuum of space. Basically – so long as it feels like STAR WARS – I can watch any of it.
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I’m not a particular fan of Ben Stiller’s. I think everybody has their favorite comedians. The comedian that they recognize a part of themselves in or that of a friend or family member. Or whose humor intrinsically speaks to them.
Ben Stiller just mostly annoys me. As a result I haven’t reviewed most of his films. I tend to like Ben in his short cameos, but his starring films… like MEET THE PARENTS, ZOOLANDER, STARSKY & HUTCH, DODGEBALL, MEET THE FOCKERS, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and THE HEARTBREAK KID… well, they just haven’t been for me.
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Despite having a lot of flaws, a LOT of flaws… THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR succeeds at being pretty much in line with the two prior installments of the MUMMY series… it is, despite everything, goofy fun.
Going in you should know that you will be missing Rachel Weisz. And you should also know that Rob Cohen should be put in some sort of cinematic reform school for criminal mishandling of the long awaited Jet Li versus Michelle Yeoh face-off… which fans of Asian martial arts cinema have been waiting decades to see. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
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Why take a television show from TV to a Theatrical Environment - if you're just going to tell a story that could have easily fit within the confines of at Television Budgeted Universe?
Did I enjoy the film? Yes, but is it worth putting in a theater? Not really. I'm not sure where the problem lies... is it Chris Carter just holding back and being stuck in the serialized reality of his Television Existence - or is it the numb-nutted executives at Fox forcing Chris to make a film within a narrow confine?
I don't know.
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Hyperbole is my forte. I’m known for it. I love films the way a dog loves humping your leg at Thanksgiving Dinner – but I get terrified when I see critics – high and low – throwing out comparisons to GODFATHER 2 for a BATMAN movie. Or that want to say that the film isn’t “merely the best superhero film ever made,” but they also want to put it as the best crime film ever made.
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Fucking Mediocre Luminescent Turd!
Tonight my wife and I had nothing to do. We decided to go see a movie and I suggested JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH in 3D. I used logic to convince her. I said that when I last checked ROTTEN TOMATOES - that the film was rated 93% positive to HELLBOY II's 90%. And although we both have pretty much despised the acting and effects in the trailer - I figured it was my duty to see the film. That I needed to come home and let you guys know... ya know... the truth about this latest version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.
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Wow. I'm M Night's undying supporter and fan. When the script for THE HAPPENING leaked everywhere - the online world hated it, but I read it and dreamt of the best version of the tale. A movie about the environment shrugging off the nasty parasites known as man. Nature conspiring to reduce our numbers to such a degree that we no longer posed a threat.
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Unfuckingbelievably unspeakably awful. THE LOVE GURU is astonishingly rancid. There's a part of me, that wants THE LOVE GURU to make like 75 Million opening weekend. Why? So that the entire - giant film going audience marks Mike Myers' death as a comedian.
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There really wasn’t anything about KUNG FU PANDA’s trailers or advertisements that made me interested in seeing the film. While I was out in Los Angeles to visit some friends and to do some business – Moriarty called me and asked if Yoko and I would be interested in checking out KUNG FU PANDA at the Universal City Walk’s IMAX.
Damn… I can’t say no to Moriarty, he’s kinda like the Billy Carter of AICN… you drink his Billy Beer when offered.
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INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is our childhood dreams captured at 24 frames a second and projected for us to relive laughing, clapping, gasping and shouting enthusiastically for.
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My father kept a “Family Book” on me, ever since I was born – and in the first 3 years of my life… apparently my favorite thing in the world was SPEED RACER. I have zero recollection of this – but it’s been in that book as long as I have memory – but honestly, I haven’t really gone back to that series since the age of three. I’ve tried, but the animation was just too crude for my tastes – but I do love it’s addiction to speed, badass technology and stylized vehicular and physical violence. Oh… and the monkey.
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