Flipside Movie Emporium

[Jack D Ripper]

[Danny Baldwin]

7/10 - 7/16

In preferential order:

The Matador (Shepard, 2006)

Take the Lead (Friedlander, 2006)

A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006)

Ice Age: The Meltdown (Saldanha, 2006)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Verbinski, 2006)

The Matador is a hysterical little buddy movie pairing Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear in one of the few recent matches that is perhaps as unlikely as the promotional materials may suggest.

Take the Lead and Ice Age 2 were both in-flight entertainment, so take my opinions of them with a grain of salt, but I was surpisingly pleased with the former and totally bored by the latter.

A Scanner Darkly is a visually exciting and challenging Phillip K. Dick adaptation from Richard Linklater, but it goes absolutely nowhere. I was disappointed.

Pirates 2 has about enough material to fill a thirty-minute short film but stretches things out to nearly three hours. What else is new? I liked the first one, but this time around, Verbinski has made a mess.
_________________
Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[Michael Scrutchin]

[beltmann]

Roger Ebert once said, ?Critics know how to have a good time too. It?s just that they have, perhaps, more curiosity about what constitutes a good time.?
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Michael Scrutchin]

[Monkeypox]

I guess my only issue would be that I have a hard time understanding someone feeling that the first film had much to offer to begin with. I will say it's moderately fun, but I felt it was solely the Johnny Depp show, much in the same way that Devil's Advocate became an Al Pacino assisted monologue.

So, I guess my question would be... what's the difference between the two? Expectations?
_________________
Rattlesnake's Texas Cobra, you sonofabitch!

[beltmann]

[Danny Baldwin]

I partially agree, but at least it had a decipherable storyline.
_________________
Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[Michael Scrutchin]

[Monkeypox]

[beltmann]

7/17 ? 7/23/06

In preferential order:

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada / Jones / USA / 2005

Mister Roberts / Ford and LeRoy / USA / 1955

A Scanner Darkly / Linklater / USA / 2006

The Way We Were / Pollack / USA / 1973

Clerks II / Smith / USA / 2006

The Hills Have Eyes / Aja / USA / 2006

The Ringer / Blaustein / USA / 2005

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices / Greenwald / USA / 2005

Pretty Persuasion / Siego / USA / 2005

Street Fighter / de Souza / USA / 1994

Date Movie / Seltzer / USA / 2006

Clerks II is the first Kevin Smith movie I've enjoyed since Chasing Amy. There's something familiar and comfortable about Smith's good-natured filth--even if he finally goes too far with the donkey show, in my perhaps prudish opinion--partially because this time he finds the right strains of heart and sincerity to give the raunch context. Plus, the movie has an appealing slacker rhythm, a tone that feels less forced and less cartoonish than in any Smith movie since, well, Clerks. It earns more goodwill than I anticipated.

Despite my enthusiasm for A Scanner Darkly, I can?t help but feel a little disappointed? it?s not quite the knockout I was hoping Linklater would deliver. There?s nothing specifically wrong with the picture?s construction?the rotoscoping emphasizes the story?s distorted reality, Linklater juggles several disparate tones brilliantly, and Danny, it absolutely goes somewhere?but the movie never quite gathers momentum, never becomes an intense evocation of addiction's power nor a frightening indictment of corporate/political duplicity.
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[juhsstin]

[beltmann]

[Danny Baldwin]

7/17 - 7/24

In preferential order:

Clerks (Smith, 1994)

The Hills Have Eyes (Aja, 2006)

Click (Coraci, 2006)

You, Me, and Dupree (Russo, 2006)

Clerks isn't as laugh-out-loud funny as I was led to expect, but a lot smarter than I thought it would be.

My reaction to The Hills Have Eyes is nearly identical to that of my reaction to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's true to the horror-genre in that its content is, indeed, horrific. And it's effectual in "horrifying" its viewers. But I'm not sure what that matters: it's not at all scarier than anything in a similar movie. It's all just pretty gross. I suppose I admired it under the presumption that terror for terror's sake is a valid part of cinema.

The other two are just what you'd expect; I saw them because they were all the early-show-before-your-shift-at-an-artistically-devoid-multiplex would allow me.
_________________
Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[juhsstin]