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21 (2008)
They proved the Vegas Blackjack System was beatable...by beating the hell out of it.
Filmmaker(s): Robert Luketic

Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.

Surf Heard in the Background is a matter of tone. No matter what a film does, it has to take us somewhere. Ideally it goes another place after it has established you, but it has to establish a place, a form, a tone. MIT is a...


Published December 3, 2022
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
You lose some, you get some.
Filmmaker(s): Nicholas Stoller

When Sarah Marshall dumps aspiring musician Peter Bretter for rock star Aldous Snow, Peter's world comes crashing down. His best friend suggests that Peter should get away from everything and to fly off to Hawaii to escape all his problems. After arriving in Hawaii and meeting the beautiful Rachel Jansen, Peter is shocked to see not only Aldous Snow in Hawaii, but also Sarah Marshall.

Puppets has jokes that often work. It has a genuine pathos that is surprisingly rare and is now the trademark of Apatow productions. It has Hawaii and two women, one pretty the other a beauty. It has a deftly comic foil in the “other boyfriend.”...


Published November 28, 2022
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Doctor Who The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008)

Minority Report reader suggested that I watch this. So I engaged with a few episodes, enough to find the most appealing ones to me. The supposed attraction is the extended magical journey, sort of a cross between “Doctor Strange,” the best Marvel comic character and “Hitchhiker’s...


Published November 25, 2022
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Poirot, Appointment with Death (2008)

The Gathering invented so much, and much of that has found its way into the film vocabulary. As with Conan Doyle, one can hardly work on her material without taking chances. Part of the risk is readers who will be upset with the translation to...


Published November 24, 2022
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Appalossa (2008)
Feelings get you killed.
Filmmaker(s): Ed Harris

Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.

Shifty you can see the notes of the writer in a film. It is as if he or she sat down with the intent of accomplishing certain things and wrote a story. But instead of the story, we still see the unerased list of goals....


Published November 24, 2022
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Flash of Genius (2008)
Corporations have time, money, and power on their side. All Bob Kearns had was the truth.
Filmmaker(s): Marc Abraham

In this David vs. Goliath drama based on a true story, college professor Robert Kearns goes up against the giants of the auto industry when they fail to give him credit for inventing intermittent windshield wipers. Kearns doggedly pursues recognition for his invention, as well as the much-deserved financial rewards for the sake of his wife and six kids.

Wipeout are all sorts of fabulous interminglings between film and life. At a general level, I study these things. But when “life” is meant in the sense of historical truth, and the film purports to represent that, then the examination gets a bits boring. Okay,...


Published November 20, 2022
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Glitch (2008)
Filmmaker(s): Randy Daudlin

A trio of brainboxes create a cell phone chip that allows telepathic communication. But when the experiment goes wrong and power falls into the wrong hands, the results are terrifying.

Canine Cells is bad in all the ordinary ways. The idea is bad and the general setup. The science is bad. But many of the background characters are worthwhile. The usual pattern for these cartoony projects is to have the main characters operate in an environmental...


Published November 20, 2022
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iMurders (2008)
No one is safe in cyberspace
Filmmaker(s): Robbie Bryan

A mysterious love triangle leads to a tragic shooting. Months later, eight members of a MySpace-esque chat room are being gruesomely murdered in the privacy of their own homes.

Kernel Panic know what? This is pretty incompetent in a few ways, but the incompetence works for it. This is a murder mystery of the old school. You are introduced to characters. Murders are being committed. Clues are placed around. Many suspects and many motives are...


Published October 28, 2022
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Immokalee U. S. A (2008)

Volunteer Growth films are a matter of manufactured narrative and we watch them to to discover what has been shaped by the filmmaker. Most documentaries are like this as well, because the idea is to illustrate a constructed narrative with reality, giving it more power. But...


Published October 27, 2022
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The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Minkoff

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

The Dance a film considered the ordinary way, this is ordinary. It has a common framing device that folds the narrative: a wimpy kid rents lots of Kung Fu movies. Then he enters those movies which here are conflated with dreams. Pretty ordinary by recent...


Published October 23, 2022
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