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Let the Right One In (2008)
Eli is 12 years old. She's been 12 for over 200 years and she just moved in next door.
Filmmaker(s): Tomas Alfredson

Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, twelve-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his twelve-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.

Choosing (and werewolf) films have always been built on a foundation of sex, some approach to sex. Often the reference is blunt and the sexual issues unsophisticated, as in the ‘Twilight‘ franchise. Here we have something rather extraordinary, a well made film with a novel...


Published February 22, 2024
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A Film with Me in It (2008)
A black comedy about screenwriting and slightly fatal accidents
Filmmaker(s): Ian Fitzgibbon

A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.

Interesting and Uninteresting Muddles again, we have a script concept that is promising enough to matter. Once again, we have an inept film built on that idea, inept because the writer wanted to be in it. The overall shape is an ordinary, explicit fold: one buddy...


Published February 22, 2024
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The Oxford Murders (2008)
There is no way of finding a single absolute truth
Filmmaker(s): Álex de la Iglesia

At Oxford University, a professor and a grad student work together to try and stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.

Talk Around Her is simply a fact that no film can stand by itself. Even when you deeply lose yourself in the experience, the cognitive machinery you use is different than in daily life — more toward directed dreamstate. Added to that is the knowledge...


Published February 23, 2024
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The Machine Girl (2008)
It's Payback Time!
Filmmaker(s): Noboru Iguchi

The life of a young, Japanese schoolgirl is destroyed when her family is killed by a Ninja-Yakuza family. Her hand cut off, she replaces it with various machines-of-death, and seeks revenge.

Borrowing something disturbing about American filmmakers going to other cultures to borrow porn tropes. ‘Kill Bill‘ just never seemed right, like a traditional Jewish grandmother making Tacos for her goyim daughter-in-law‘s brownie troop because she thought that’s what it was all about. Today, when we watch...


Published February 22, 2024
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Lovely, Still (2008)
Something mysterious, new, unexpected and lovely is happening to Robert Malone.
Filmmaker(s): Nicholas Fackler

A holiday fable that tells the story of an elderly man discovering love for the first time.

First Date rarely do this, recommend a bad film. But I will ask if you start this, that you see it through. The film takes advantage of the fact that we have a profoundly well developed notion of a movie romance. We have that here: older...


Published February 9, 2024
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Red Cliff (2008)
The future will be decided.
Filmmaker(s): John Woo

In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance.

Tectonic Extremes am not a fan of Woo, and the reason becomes more stark when you compare this to Zhang‘s work. Zhang creates a world of grace in which people move, affected by the laws of that world. They can act, based on the values in...


Published February 9, 2024
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Ong Bak 2 (2008)
Warrior. Conqueror. Legend.
Filmmaker(s): Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai

Moments from death a young man is rescued by a renowned warrior. Realizing unsurpassed physical potential in the young boy he trains him into the most dangerous man alive. As he becomes a young man he goes on a lone mission of vengeance against the vicious slave traders who enslaved him as a youth and the treacherous warlord who killed his father.

Costume Trunk was directed to this because I am interested in cinematic choreography. From a practical perspective, that usually means martial arts. Further, it means Asian films. But gee they sure get tedious after the first few unless there really is a master behind the camera....


Published February 9, 2024
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Blindness (2008)
Your vision of the world will change forever.
Filmmaker(s): Fernando Meirelles

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Tosca I wonder. At times, it seems that we all have some shared cinematic values — that some art can reach us all. Sure, we usually sacrifice depth in the process, but that's a small enough occasional price for the joy of laughing with a...


Published January 20, 2024
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JCVD (2008)
The Biggest Fight of His Life!
Filmmaker(s): Mabrouk El Mechri

Between his tax problems and his legal battle with his wife for the custody of his daughter, these are hard times for the action movie star who finds that even Steven Seagal has pinched a role from him! This fictionalized version of Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the country of his birth to seek the peace and tranquility he can no longer enjoy in the United States, but inadvertently gets involved in a bank robbery with hostages.

Hostages Divided friends recommended this because of the enfolded reality and story. Jean Claude, an actor in the film, plays himself as an actor between films who gets entangled in a “Dog Day Afternoon” movie-like robbery. If there was charm in this construction, it would have...


Published January 19, 2024
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Bottle Shock (2008)
Based on a true story of love, victory, and fermentation
Filmmaker(s): Randall Miller

Paris-based wine expert Steven Spurrier heads to California in search of cheap wine that he can use for a blind taste test in the French capital. Stumbling upon the Napa Valley, the stuck-up Englishman is shocked to discover a winery turning out top-notch chardonnay. Determined to make a name for himself, he sets about getting the booze back to Paris.

Jostled of these sorts of things. Something happens that when it happens around you, it seems pretty interesting. When someone thinks “they should make a movie out of this” usually they are wrong. The supposedly interesting thing here is that a California wine won a French...


Published April 2, 2024
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