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Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993)
Nick is leaving. Beth is staying. Carol is waiting. Sid is painting.
Filmmaker(s): Michael Steinberg

Rebelling against his dreary life in a small Arizona town, salesman Nick abandons his girlfriend, Beth, and strikes out onto the highway in search of... something else. Encouraged by her best friend, Carol, Beth reluctantly accepts the romantic attentions of Sid, a local housepainter.

Drifting Love Sometimes — and I think it is often with sculptural films — the essence of the movie is concentrated in a few elements. There is a lot of surrounding story here, but it is there for only two things. These are things that need...


Published February 1, 2024
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Blood of the Vampire (1958)
Nothing Like It This Side of Hell!
Filmmaker(s): Henry Cass

A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life.

The Evil Eye We each have the experiences that brought us to the way we dream, and the forms we use in wrangling the world. My cinematic maturity is pretty traceable because the films and the watching were so self-ware. Going back before well-formed notions of self,...


Published January 20, 2024
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Black Velvet (1976)
A NEW EXPERIENCE IN SENSUALITY. No one is ever the same after ...
Filmmaker(s): Bitto Albertini

Internationally-renowned photographer Mae Jordan, professionally known as 'Emanuelle', is hired by a wealthy British expat to go to Nairobi to shoot the ruins and wildlife. While there, she explores sexual situations with her hosts and their friends.

Math Porn This is a pretty interesting twist on the by then settled formula. The Emanuelle formula is: lots of nudity, with the women being trim, suggesting innocence. shot as softcore with two or three hardcore inserts, so that multiple versions can be marketed. the women are portrayed as in...


Published January 19, 2024
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Iron Man 2 (2010)
It's not the armor that makes the hero, but the man inside.
Filmmaker(s): Jon Favreau

With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark faces pressure from the government, the press and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, with Pepper Potts and James 'Rhodey' Rhodes at his side, must forge new alliances – and confront powerful enemies.

Dimension Common sense hits the front office at Marvel's adventure in movie-making. Until now, they've just made bad films. Bad. The basic problem, I believe, is that the rest of the world is out exploiting the third dimension and Marvel insists on making flat movies. Even Spidermen,...


Published January 19, 2024
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Invisible (2007)
Life, death and something in between.
Filmmaker(s): David S. Goyer

After an attack leaves him in limbo -- invisible to the living and also near death -- a teenager discovers the only person who might be able help him is his attacker.

Disembodied Eye Many of these teen movies have to distinguish themselves by leveraging narrative tricks. That’s because the market restricts the story so much that it is impossible to stand out. The narrative device that interests me is when the viewer is deliberately placed in the...


Published January 19, 2024
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Invictus (2009)
His people needed a leader. He gave them a champion.
Filmmaker(s): Clint Eastwood

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Locker Room Lockup To my mind, this is less about South Africa, sport and Mandela than about another man. Oh, the drama was really there. It doesn’t matter that it was not as significant in uniting a nation as depicted. How could it be? How could it? But...


Published January 19, 2024
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Black Swan (2010)
Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go.
Filmmaker(s): Darren Aronofsky

A journey through the psyche of a young ballerina whose starring role as the duplicitous swan queen turns out to be a part for which she becomes frighteningly perfect.

The Math When I encountered “Pi,” I was profoundly upset. It happened again with “Beautiful Mind” and “Good Will,” other films about mathematical imagination. How, I wondered, could something as inherently cinematic as the mathematical imagination be so clumsily handled? How is it that the only...


Published January 19, 2024
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The Bird People in China (1998)
The children of the sky.
Filmmaker(s): Takashi Miike

Wada, a salary man, is enlisted to venture off to China to investigate a potential Jade mine. After his arrival, Wada encounters a violent, yet sentimental, yakuza, who takes the liberty of joining his adventure through China. Led on their long and disastrous journey to the mine by Shen, the three men come across something even more magical and enticing.

Purity, Song, Jade Miike has a pretty solid pattern. He makes films for a distinctly Japanese audience, teasing out some issue or two that seems culturally rooted. This is his context. He shifts it into a magical, cinematic world and imagines scenes as episodes within this...


Published September 11, 2023
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Billy Elliott (2000)
Inside every one of us is a special talent waiting to come out. The trick is finding it.
Filmmaker(s): Stephen Daldry

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

Battle Dancer This is a replacement comment. Though the dance was passable here, the story is so vapid and unembellished, I sat there looking for another movie. And I found one, battling to get out. It was clever and true, overlooked because of the mediocrity placed in...


Published August 27, 2023
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So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
The honeymoon was killer.
Filmmaker(s): Thomas Schlamme

Just after a bad breakup, Charlie MacKenzie falls for lovely butcher Harriet Michaels and introduces her to his parents. But, as voracious consumers of sensational tabloids, his parents soon come to suspect that Harriet is actually a notorious serial killer -- "Mrs. X" -- wanted in connection with a string of bizarre honeymoon killings. Thinking his parents foolish, Charlie proposes to Harriet. But while on his honeymoon with her, he begins to fear they were right.

Green Haggis Sometimes a movie only develops worth after a subsequent movie worked. I myself disliked “Shrek” because of the underhanded attempt to undermine the Disney/Pixar alliance, and the smarmy Bill Gates strategy. But some people did like it, largely because of the voices and key...


Published July 27, 2023
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