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Monday, December 30, 2013

Midwestern Gothic

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"Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska."--Little Bill Daggett, Unforgiven I do...
Sunday, December 22, 2013

Innocence and Experience

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I'm not entirely sure how to process Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche), because it short-circuits a lo...
Monday, December 16, 2013

Where There's Smoke

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013, directed by Francis Lawrence) is more or less the same film as its predecessor. The filmmakers behin...
Thursday, December 12, 2013

Dirty Laundry

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I saw a headline on one of the entertainment sites a few days ago that posed the question of whether or not Stephen Frears's new film, ...
Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Big Quiz Redux

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This time of the year is kind of a slog for me, with most of my movie viewing confined to festival screeners (about which I can't write...
Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Dying in Dallas

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I've been dreading Dallas Buyers Club (2013, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee). I always dread films made by cisgender filmmakers in which...
2 comments:
Saturday, November 30, 2013

Ragnarok and Roll

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Thor: The Dark World (2013, directed by Alan Taylor) is a better film than its predecessor. It may be a better film than The Avengers , bu...
Sunday, November 24, 2013

The Modern Prometheus

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The last film I watched this October was James Whale's Frankenstein, a film I've written about twice before. I don't have a lot...
5 comments:
Friday, November 22, 2013

"Why, an Invisible Man Could Rule the World!"

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James Whale's adaptation of The Invisible Man (1933) is candy, pure and simple. Appropriate for Halloween, I think. It's the apoth...
3 comments:
Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Walking After Midnight

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I was home for Halloween this year, the first time in many years that I've been at home for the holiday. I live in small town America w...
Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Lost in the Woods

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At the end of Ritual ( Modus Anomali , 2012, directed by Joko Anwar), I wanted to refer to the movie by the title of "Ritual in Trans...
Saturday, November 09, 2013

Rat Race

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My friend, Renee, is absolutely mad for obscure horror movies. Every Halloween, she dredges up oddities from around the world to show at he...
Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Dying By Design

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The only way I can make sense of Dario Argento's 1980s output is if I consider it all as a merciless put-on. How else to approach a mov...
3 comments:
Sunday, November 03, 2013

Going Through the Motions

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It's been a while since I've seen a movie as bad as Shiver (2012, directed by Julian Richards). I almost hate writing about it, to...
Saturday, November 02, 2013

Dancing on the Head of a Pin

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About a third of the way through The Prophecy (1995, directed by Gregory Widen), I stopped the movie and went and did something else. It...
Friday, November 01, 2013

Free Falling

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Gravity (2013, directed by Alfonso Cuarón) is a technical marvel and one of the most viscerally terrifying films I've ever seen. It...
Thursday, October 31, 2013

Inside Outside

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I think that you can't actually spoil a good movie, but I also know that many people think that spoilers are rude. This is a dilemma wh...
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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Not Constantinople

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For a filmmaker who isn't normally thought of as a genre director, Neil Jordan sure does make a lot of horror movies. Byzantium (2013)...
Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Mix and Match

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My friend, Roberta , teaches Italian film, so when she says I need to have more Italian films on my long Halloween slog, I'm inclined t...
Monday, October 28, 2013

Roll Them Bones

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During the golden age of Japanese film, Shôchiku was Japan's Tiffany studio, home to Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, and Kinoshita. It's si...
Sunday, October 27, 2013

Cold Comfort

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I went into The Colony (2013, directed by Jeff Renfroe) completely blind. I knew nothing about it except that is was a science fiction/hor...
Friday, October 25, 2013

Lovecraft a Go-Go

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I first read The Dunwich Horror when I was fourteen, if I recall correctly. A haunter of used bookstores even then, I found the story in an...
Thursday, October 24, 2013

That Hellbound Train

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I took a break from new viewings last night to watch an old favorite. Here's what I wrote about Aldo Lado's Night Train Murders (1...
1 comment:
Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Second Verse Same as the First

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Back when Escape from L.A. (1996, directed by John Carpenter) was in theaters, a friend of mine suggested that John Carpenter, Kurt Russel...
1 comment:
Sunday, October 20, 2013

Another Roadside Massacre

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100 Bloody Acres (2012, directed by Cameron and Colin Cairns) is one of those rural massacre movies that grew up in the American South, on...
Saturday, October 19, 2013

There's No Time Like the Present

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I normally don't believe the teenagers in most films about teenagers. Hollywood teens aren't like any teens I've ever met, even...
Friday, October 18, 2013

Duplication Errors

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Call it the Psycho dilemma: The danger that, when closely remaking a given film, you will miss some animating ka that gave the earlier fil...
Thursday, October 17, 2013

Carrion Comfort Food

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After sitting through Cockneys vs. Zombies (2012, directed by Matthias Hoene), I think I'm going to take a long vacation from zombie m...
1 comment:
Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Dispatches from the Void

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As I was saying a couple of days ago, the "found footage" film appears to be here to stay. Here's another example. Europa Rep...
Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Don't Worry, Be Happy

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Jaume Balaguero is a horror filmmaker who knows the value of cruelty. His films aren't content to just knife the viewer in the small of...