EL TOJO

EASTERN PROMISES

2008-04-30T09:44:05Z

EASTERN PROMISES, David Cronenberg Slick, deft, and efficient, but Eastern Promises lacks a heart to propel it through its grimy plot. The emotions are hollow, the motivations perfunctory, and the end product is surprisingly bloodless f...

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YES THIS IS A REAL ENTRY. NO MY TASTE IS NOT QUESTIONABLE.

2008-03-30T05:48:22Z

TRAFFIC (2000). Another Brilliant Lesson in the following. Do not watch The Wire before watching any other film about the war on drugs, the drug industry, or just a straight-up yeyo part-ay because it will make the film seem: (a) pre-chewed, (b) ...

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Fargo (1996)

2008-03-09T06:57:10Z

Fargo (1996). Oh, that was pitch-perfect. Absolutely sincere and patient and wonderfully made. In some ways, I prefer it to even No Country. No Country was weighed down by its grim spectres, but Fargo has complete free range and the purity of its ...

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I AM LEGEND; Matheson

2008-02-03T05:17:01Z

Also known as the day I realized that I AM ABSOLUTELY SPINELESS. I Am Legend; Richard Matheson I Am Legend is a short piece of clockwork terror. The protagonist, Robert Neville, is the last man on earth (or so it says on the back cover). And he ...

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Resident Evil (2002)

2007-12-31T20:08:12Z

Resident Evil (2002) For all the jackboot critical snobbery eviscerating its reputation, Resident Evil is surprisingly grim, tense, and excellently executed. Granted, it uses flashbacks like a crutch, makes a mockery of science, and lacks any flig...

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American Wangsta

2007-12-26T23:23:22Z

AMERICAN GANGSTER (Ridley Scott) Bled of its original mean, grimy charm and thoroughly pre-chewed, Ridley Scott's version of Frank Lucas' life is a candy-floss version of Gangster 101. Lucas's story is heavily bruised by its meat-handed Hollywood ...

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Mean Creek (2004)

2007-12-01T07:19:05Z

Mean Creek (2004). Mean kids suck, action is taken, things go awry. Mean Creek is suprisingly deft at portraying the emotions and lives of its adolescent characters in a rural Oregon town. While the constraints of each character sometime chafe (...

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Love in Space

2007-11-18T07:27:47Z

Solaris (1972). Gorgeously and meticulously filmed, with careful attention to detail and bulging with a surprising number of petty but horrific visual details. However, fundamentally flawed in that it attempts to plumb the depth of t...

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Everything is Illuminated (2005)

2007-08-24T06:00:48Z

Everything is Illuminated (2005). Jonathon Safran Foer travels to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather's life during the Holocaust, and Liev Schreiber swerves off the beaten path. Having read Everything is Illuminated, I expected t...

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Ahhh! Layla, get back in your cell! Don't make me get the hose!

2007-08-22T04:46:21Z

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing; Melissa Bank Oh chick-lit. Only you could take an otherwise hard-bitten, verbally snappy, prickly heroine and focus all of her amateurish but refreshing waspish animosity at the timeless art of seduction. T...

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