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Total Recall (2012)
What Is Real?

Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure goes wrong, Quaid becomes a wanted man by the police and joins forces with a rebel fighter to stop the evil Chancellor Cohaagen.

Women and Buildings was distracted in the decade when this was made, so was not watching films at the pace I had before. In fact, I would likely have avoided it anyway based on the initial press. The recent watching was of the Director’s Cut....


Published July 29, 2024
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Twisters (2024)
Chase. Ride. Survive.
Filmmaker(s): Lee Isaac Chung

As storm season intensifies, the paths of former storm chaser Kate Carter and reckless social-media superstar Tyler Owens collide when terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed. The pair and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.

Surrey with the Fringe on Top might be enough to build a movie around special effects that don’t involve a fight or monsters. These usually fall into the catastrophe category. The key to that category it seems, is the noir necessity that the catastrophe happens...


Published August 25, 2024
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Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Did she do it?
Filmmaker(s): Justine Triet

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

Pairy Maison framing here is a courtroom drama, very simple and straightforward. A process that is (mostly) inhuman with a prosecutor we want to hate. We never discover what actually happened, and the craft here is in taking a simple ambiguity — did this woman...


Published September 20, 2024
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Man from Reno (2014)
The greatest mystery she's ever written. And it could be her last…
Filmmaker(s): Dave Boyle

A mystery outside of San Francisco brings together small-town sheriff Paul Del Moral, Japanese author Aki Akahori, and a traveler from Reno who soon disappears, leaving behind his suitcase and a trail of questions.

Shell Game I continue to find comments original posted to IMDB, deleted because of a complaint by an unseen adversary — and therefore lost. However, a re-viewing brings this later comment. Spoilers here. This is much like ‘Chinatown’ with some ‘Vertigo’ mixed in. Both noirs of...


Published September 20, 2024
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The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Where will you be?
Filmmaker(s): Roland Emmerich

After years of increases in the greenhouse effect, havoc is wreaked globally in the form of catastrophic hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves, floods and the beginning of a new Ice Age. Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall tries to warn the world while also shepherding to safety his son, trapped in New York after the city is overwhelmed by the start of the new big freeze.

Burned Books oh why do makers of bad films sometimes put a really good actor in a minor part? It just makes everything else seem cheap. In this case, Ian Holm has a few small scenes that anchor the film. He plays the part that...


Published September 22, 2024
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Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
The King vs. The King of the Dead.
Filmmaker(s): Don Coscarelli

Bubba Ho-tep tells the "true" story of what really did become of Elvis Presley. We find Elvis as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death," then missed his chance to switch back. He must team up with JFK and fight an ancient Egyptian mummy for the souls of their fellow residents.

The Singing Detective those who don't know it, 'The Singing Detective' was the only decent thing I know that TeeVee has produced. It was one of those longish movies they call a miniseries. It featured a man in a hospital who imagined himself to be...


Published September 28, 2024
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Wolfs (2024)
They're not partners. They're not friends. They're wolfs.
Filmmaker(s): Jon Watts

Hired to cover up a high-profile crime, a fixer soon finds his night spiralling out of control when he's forced to work with an unexpected counterpart.

Sundance Sundown of the advantages of age is that I’ve seen older films when they were new. If you consider film viewing as at least a craft — as I do — then it matters that you are able to bring the personal anchoring of...


Published September 29, 2024
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Kimi (2022)
She's not the only one listening.
Filmmaker(s): Steven Soderbergh

A tech worker with agoraphobia discovers recorded evidence of a violent crime but is met with resistance when she tries to report it. Seeking justice, she must do the thing she fears the most: leave her apartment.

Powdered Banana we have a master filmmaker, someone who can squeeze a brilliant vision out of just about anything. We have a very talented and experienced scriptwriter, someone who has impressed before. And a very competent actress who fills the role well. She has a...


Published November 11, 2024
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Wanted (2008)
Choose your destiny.
Filmmaker(s): Timur Bekmambetov

Doormat Wesley Gibson is an office worker whose life is going nowhere. He meets a sexy woman named Fox and discovers that his recently murdered father - whom Wesley never knew - belonged to the Fraternity, a secret society of assassins which takes its orders from Fate itself. Fox and Sloan, the Fraternity's leader, teach Wesley, through intense training, to tap into dormant powers and hone his innate killing skills. Though he enjoys his newfound abilities, he begins to suspect that there is more to the Fraternity than meets the eye.

Shoots Itself in the Head a trend in these big budget action moves to try and support the thing with hefty story components: profundity, explorations of fate and power (often via revealed conspiracies). We come to expect this, and I believe have rather clear thresholds...


Published November 21, 2024
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Body of Evidence (1993)
An act of love, or an act of murder?
Filmmaker(s): Uli Edel

When an elderly millionaire is found dead with cocaine in his system, his will leaves $8 million to Rebecca Carlson, who was having an affair with him. District attorney Robert Garrett decides to prosecute Rebecca, arguing that she deliberately engaged in wild sex with the old man to overexcite him and lead to his premature death. Defense attorney Frank Dulaney defends Rebecca in court while getting sucked into a dangerous affair with her.

Whipped often run across movies where the idea of the thing is much richer than the thing itself. In this case, the idea starts with that narrative battleground, the trial. Trial movies are cool, the best solution to the untrusted narrator problem. In this case,...


Published November 23, 2024
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