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X2: X-Men United (2003)
The time has come for those who are different to stand united.
Filmmaker(s): Bryan Singer

Professor Charles Xavier and his team of genetically gifted superheroes face a rising tide of anti-mutant sentiment led by Col. William Stryker. Storm, Wolverine and Jean Grey must join their usual nemeses—Magneto and Mystique—to unhinge Stryker's scheme to exterminate all mutants.

Utterly Pedestrian have enthusiastic hopes for big budget action pictures. That's because the market is so crowded, and the viewing public so visually sophisticated that we know that some thought must go into these things. This is especially so when you are building a franchise,...


Published October 8, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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The Saddest Music in the World (2003)
"If you're sad, and like beer, I'm your lady."
Filmmaker(s): Guy Maddin

In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.

Bone Carpet a film takes time to penetrate. Sometimes the apparently hackneyed becomes profound after handling. It has happened to me, and once it happened to me in front of you. Some time back, I saw this movie. It deviates in several ways. I thought each...


Published December 2, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
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Love Actually (2003)
The ultimate romantic comedy.
Filmmaker(s): Richard Curtis

Eight London couples try to deal with their relationships in different ways. Their tryst with love makes them discover how complicated relationships can be.

Structured Simultaneity am a sucker for date movies: I laugh and cry - especially cry - along with the rest. And then feel violated afterwards by the asymmetry of reward: they get my money time and a piece of my soul and I get useless...


Published December 24, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
Get your hands together for The Triplets of Belleville!
Filmmaker(s): Sylvain Chomet

When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters—an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire—to rescue him.

Dream Stories see. How many stories are within this story. There's the show at the beginning which our heroine watches that gets transformed into her dream about the capture of the grandson she'll never have. When that show comes alive as reality, it gets mirrored back...


Published June 17, 2025
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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D-Tox (2002)
Survival is a Killer.
Filmmaker(s): Jim Gillespie

A disgraced FBI agent with a drinking problem joins nine other troubled law enforcement officers at an isolated detox clinic in the wilds of Wyoming. But the therapeutic sanctuary becomes a nightmarish hellhole when a major snowstorm cuts off the clinic from the outside world and enables a killer on the inside to get busy.

Ten Little Cops in Intensive Care tracked this down because of Polly Walker, someone whose early film career was really impressive, and I got caught up in this rather interesting project. It attempts an awful lot, starting with an Agatha Christie mystery foundation, “Ten Little...


Published May 17, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Hero (2002)
One man's strength will unite an empire.
Filmmaker(s): Zhang Yimou

During China's Warring States period, a district prefect arrives at the palace of Qin Shi Huang, claiming to have killed the three assassins who had made an attempt on the king's life three years ago.

Space things interesting about this project. First, the sad news, at least for the Chinese, that the Japanese have finally won. This is a Japanese film in all important respects: the theming by lush colour, the rather modern notion of benevolent conquest (genuinely originating in...


Published October 23, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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Insomnia (2002)
A tough cop. A brilliant killer. An unspeakable crime.
Filmmaker(s): Christopher Nolan

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

Waking Life element that makes cinema unique is the ability to fold: to shuffle time and narrative both by the mind and eye. Nolan showed great promise with ‘Following’, built around a very ambitious narrative structure. It moved the notion of narration way in front of...


Published October 27, 2022
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Irreversible (2002)
Time Destroys All Things.
Filmmaker(s): Gaspar Noé

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

Kubrick for Dummies of the giants of film, Kubrick's contribution was an exploration of plastic narrative within the story. A simple story just happens and the narrative stance is one of simple observance. Kubrick looked at competing perspectives, for instance ‘2001' shifts among three perspectives...


Published October 30, 2022
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8 Women (2002)
Living in a house full of women can be murder.
Filmmaker(s): François Ozon

Eight women gather to celebrate Christmas in a snowbound cottage, only to find the family patriarch dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret.

3 Women Really had a lot of trouble with this film. I get what it is trying to do and particularly appreciate the notion. The distance between the story and the music is like that great bowling alley scene in “Buffalo 66” (and the similar...


Published November 22, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
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Auto Focus (2002)
A day without sex is a day wasted.
Filmmaker(s): Paul Schrader

A successful TV star during the 1960s, former "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane projects a wholesome family-man image, but this front masks his persona as a sex addict who records and photographs his many encounters with women, often with the help of his seedy friend, John Henry Carpenter. This biographical drama reveals how Crane's double life takes its toll on him and his family, and ultimately contributes to his death.

Soldiering, Winking, Filming Schrader simultaneously fascinates and repels me. That’s because he has such intelligent ideas for films, and then makes then in such a pedestrian fashion the inspiration is all but trod away. And his ideas are so very clever in addition to being intelligently...


Published November 26, 2022
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