Archive for November, 2008
Lots of conflict in this Christmas gift
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
To say that director Arnaud Desplechin’s “A Christmas Tale” is about a dysfunctional family is a bit like arguing that World War II amounted to little more than a minor quarrel between Germany and the rest of the world. Packed with incident and densely populated, Desplechin’s family drama [...]
Thanksgiving in Nilbog
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
With family coming over this weekend, I had been thinking for weeks about what I could pick for a perfect Thanksgiving movie. This lead to further pondering about what qualifies as a Thanksgiving movie. Then today, it suddenly struck me: Troll 2. Think about it, here are [...]
A Good Day to be Black and Sexy
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Michael Vass
Music has always been an integral part of being Black in America. It has been an escape, a statement of defiance, a shout of joy, and a deep reverence of faith. Black culture is so deeply woven in music as to have influenced all forms of music in [...]
2012
Rating 3.50 out of 5
[?]Written by Michael Vass
Way back in 1999, as many began to panic about the legacy codes and what would happen as computers struck 2000, I recall watching a program that detailed the possible ways the world might end. This show, which I don’t remember the name of, covered most of the [...]
Harvey Milk’s date with history
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francisco politician, was assassinated in 1978 by fellow city supervisor Dan White. Even before Milk’s life was cut short, he had become a gay icon, a man who committed his life to the gay rights movement, but who early on learned how [...]
A movie as big as a country
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
“Australia” attempts to be as big and as unruly as the country that gives the movie its name. Maybe that’s why director Baz Luhrmann’s sprawling epic turns out to be several movies in one.
At times, “Australia” looks like a classic western built around a cattle drive. At other [...]
Of late I think of Silverton
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
Photo: Kim Murphy / LA Times
Like the main character in the Twilight Zone episode this post title refers to, I sometimes think wistfully of my time in a small town. If you come from a small town, you live for the day when you can brag about [...]
A feel-good movie set in the slums
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
The thing about “Slumdog Millionaire” — Danny Boyle’s exuberant romp through the teeming streets and alleys of Mumbai — is this: Boyle mixes hard-core realism and with fairy-tale logic, and somehow manages to catapult his impoverished hero toward a happy ending. Better yet, he carries us along with [...]
Her prom date was a vampire
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
It’s time to stop and wonder why vampires — never entirely out of vogue — are again resurgent. At the movies, we’ve had the chilly Swedish import, “Let the Right One In.” 0n television, HBO’s “True Blood” is about to conclude its first season. The film and the [...]
Celebrities and entertainers that should retire
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Michael Vass
Things in Hollywood tend to happen in 3’s. Whether it’s a franchise of movies (before everyone stops caring about the series of films), celebrity deaths, or now early retirement. The current news flash about the silver screen is that Joaquin Phoenix, Angelina Jolie, and Nicole Kidman have all [...]
Something old, something new
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
I spend a lot of time re-watching movies. Probably more than I should, considering how many titles I need to catch up on. But this practice occasionally leads to great experiences, like catching something in a movie that I hadn’t noticed in any of the previous umpteenth [...]
Upcoming films to avoid like the plague
Rating 3.50 out of 5
[?]Written by Michael Vass
So we know some of the upcoming movies that I would recommend (based on the trailers, actors, and plots as far as I can tell). But perhaps as critical is to know what to avoid in the theaters. Nothing is as painful as the thought that you just [...]
Upcoming movies for 2008 holiday season and 2009
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Michael Vass
Now that the election is over, and while we are still learning how our money is being spent in ways we never considered (thank you Paulson), the need for a distraction is eminent. This holiday season, as unemployment rises and stock market hopes fall, we all need to [...]
Wrestling with feelings after a movie
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Last night, I attended a Starz Denver Film Festival screening of “The Wrestler,” a new film starring Mickey Rourke and directed by Darren Aronofsky. If you follow film, you know that “The Wrestler” received an enthusiastic reception at September’s Toronto International Festival and that many are hailing it [...]
“Synecdoche:” See it. Don’t say it.
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” is bound to divide audiences. I admired its creativity and marveled at the idea that a director could raise money to make a movie that spends much of its time contemplating death. Philip Seymour Hoffman — as an upstate New York theater director [...]
A vampire in suburban Stockholm
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
“Let the Right One In” might be the most original vampire movie to hit the screen in some time. Steeped in loneliness and punched up by gruesome splashes of violence, this Swedish import becomes even creepier if you give some thought to its ending. Set in 1982, the [...]
From Russia with a cello
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
Note: This post is part of the Blog, James Blog-a-thon at Lazy Eye Theatre.
I had hoped to write an all-Timothy Dalton post for the James Blog-a-thon, but it turns out there’s nothing nice I can say about License to Kill, other than its ultra-smooth title cut from [...]
This movie computes — more or less
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
It finally happened. Perhaps it was inevitable. I watched a movie on a computer.
I’m old enough to remember when critics refused to review films they hadn’t seen in theaters or in screening rooms. The idea of watching a video on a TV was akin to making love with [...]
Two stupid signs for your enjoyment
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
If you’ve followed this blog for long, you know I don’t often post about the local business scene here in Boise. In fact, this is the first time. But yesterday I saw two pieces of signage so incomprehensibly stupid, it just had to be shared with everyone.
Let’s [...]
My ignorance knows no alphabetical bounds
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
Fletch at Blog Cabins is battling illiteracy with his new meme, The Alphabet Meme. I’ve heard that for every child that learns to read through this meme, Fletch will receive a golden apple, and I think that’s great (the golden apple part, I don’t care about the [...]
Yes, Bruno, there was a Holocaust
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Far be it from me to suggest restrictions on how artists approach any subject, even the Holocaust. This most calamitous event in a long series of sorry human transgressions remains a source of endless fascination, horror and authorial obsession, and it has attracted lots of diverse talents.
But when [...]
An American election and a French movie
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Now that Barack Obama has become the president elect, it’s safe to assume that a large number of white Americans have found a measure of psychological relief in being able to vote for a black candidate. “See,” they’ll finally be able to say, “We really mean it when [...]
Movie Review: Max Payne
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Michael Vass
What can I say about Max Payne? Well perhaps I can start with the fact that this review is several days late, yes yet again because of the election. So some of you may have seen this film by now. But others may be waiting for the DVD [...]
