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Category Archives: Reviews
August Underground’s Mordum (2003)
By losing all of the “in-between” moments of randomness and focusing exclusively on 80+ minutes of relentless, disgusting violence and reprehensible characters, August Underground’s Mordum loses everything that made the original film so effective. The captured moments here feel much more like … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged August Underground's Mordum, Fred Vogel
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Nixon (1995)
A grandstanding achievement from Oliver Stone. Nixon has the sweep and length of an all-American epic but really it’s just an incredibly in-depth character study. I always respond to Stone’s work when he turns things up to the max and when he clearly has … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized
Tagged Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Nixon, Oliver Stone
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Scream 2 (1997)
Like Scream, this is a film I’ve watched to death over the years. But unlike Screamit doesn’t quite hold up as well. The opening sequence in the cinema is a fucking all-timer. It’s Craven firing on all cylinders and is inventive, surprising and upsetting … Continue reading
August Underground (2001)
August Underground is a gruelling watch but appropriately so. Presented as a string of found footage clips from a pair of serial killers’ Mini DV collection, it certainly looks and feels the part. First off: the violence, the perspective, the ideology, … Continue reading
U Turn (1997)
It’s a good time to be an Oliver Stone fan. Or at the very least it’s a good time to be thinking about Oliver Stone. His latest film Snowden has just hit cinemas but more interestingly, Matt Zoller Seitz recently published The Oliver Stone Experience; … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Claire Danes, Jennifer Lopez, Joaquin Phoenix, Nick Nolte, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, U Turn
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The Bad News Bears (1978)
Pleasurably foul-mouthed and un-PC, The Bad News Bears takes the kiddie sports-team formula (or was this the origin of that trope?) and filters it exclusively through a grainy 70s Hollywood lens. The kids drink booze, smoke, swear, act out and the film … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Jackie Earle Haley, Michael Ritchie, The Bad News Bears, Walter Mathau
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Captain America: Civil War (2016)
I had a lot of problems with Civil War the first time I saw it; too scattershot, too cluttered. Honestly, I found it a bit of a chore to enjoy it as much as so many others apparently were. Upon re-watch, however, … Continue reading
After Last Season (2009)
Like some kind of weird transmission from another planet, After Last Season found its way in front of my eyes with little warning. I had no understanding of what it was, where it came from or what it was trying to say … Continue reading
The Doors (1991)
With The Doors, Oliver Stone was able to bring the mysticism brewing under the surface in many of his films completely to the fore. It’s none more apparent than in the film’s most memorable and endlessly parodied scene in which Jim … Continue reading
Posted in Movies Watched In 2016, Reviews
Tagged Oliver Stone, The Doors, Val Kilmer
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"This Film Should Be Played Loud" 