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Sunset Boulevard

5/22/2017

4 Comments

 

A-
​3.67

A fading actress clings to her stardom.

Directed by Billy Wilder
Starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden
Initial Review by Chris Cook

Picture
"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.”  Everyone should’ve heard this line at some point by now. I was waiting for it the entire film; it was the final line of dialogue.
​

Ranked number 12 on the American Film Institute’s list 0f 100 best American films in 1998, and coming in at 16th on the 2008 list, Sunset Boulevard continues to stand up as a cinematic classic.

The film opens up with a dead body floating face down in a swimming pool. This was recently given a nod in the first episode of season seven of Archer. ​

The film is narrated by Joe Gillis (William Holden), a struggling screenwriter whose ideas get rejected and his car is threatened by repossession. While running from the repo men, he stumbles upon a run-down mansion, the home of washed-up actress Norma Desmond, played brilliantly by Gloria Swanson. Once learning that he’s a writer, she coerces Joe to move into her home and assist with fixing her intended comeback film script (think Stephen King’s Misery without the hacking off of limbs with an axe).


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4 Comments

Heatstroke

12/29/2016

4 Comments

 

D
​1.08

A family is threatened by poachers and nature on a trip to Africa.

Directed by Evelyn Purcell
Starring Stephen Dorff, Maisie Williams, and Svetlana Metkina
Initial Review by Chris Cook

Picture
Based on the novel Leave No Trace by Hannah Nyala West (I wonder if it’s any better), Heatstroke is, well, it’s a movie. The feature film debut of Game of Throne’s Maisie Williams falls pretty flat. A comment earlier from the Facebook page describes the movie as Arya Stark running from poachers in the desert. With this being part of the plotline, it’s a safe bet to say that winter is definitely not coming in this one.


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4 Comments

Pee-wee's Big Holiday

8/15/2016

7 Comments

 

D+
​1.44

Paul Reuben's oddball character takes some time off, gets in some wacky scrapes.

Directed by John Lee
Starring Paul Reubens, Joe Manganiello, and Alia Shawkat
​Initial Review by Chris Cook

Picture
In the 1980s, Paul Reubens brought us the character Pee-wee Herman. From the Tim Burton-directed Pee-wee’s Big Adventure to the Saturday morning hit Pee-wee’s Playhouse, he delighted us when we were younger. There were the colorful Playhouse characters: Chairry, Conky 2000, Jambi, Laurence Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis. We screamed when the secret word was spoken. We all wanted his bicycle. We remember the bar top dance to Tequila and are well aware that the Alamo has no basement (I’ve been there, it really doesn’t).

And then we got Big Top Pee-wee and the infamous adult theater arrest. Was Pee-wee Herman gone for good? Fast forward to 2010 when we saw the release of a new Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage version of the Playhouse show, and now in 2016, a new original film on Netflix, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.


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7 Comments

Ragnarok

5/30/2016

6 Comments

 

C+
​2.20

A Norwegian archaeologist and his team awaken a giant monster.

Directed by Mikkel Braene Sandemose
Starring Pal Sverre Hagen, Nicolai Cleve Broch, and Sofia Helin
Initial Review by Chris Cook

Picture
With Thor: Ragnarok hitting theaters next year, I decided to watch a movie about Ragnarok. This honestly isn’t the reason; I haven’t even seen the first two Thor movies. I can only imagine that this movie ended up in my Netflix queue after rating the 2010 Norwegian film Trollhunter.
​

I enjoyed Ragnarok to an extent. It gave me a Michael Crichton/National Treasure kind of vibe. And similar to Trollhunter (which had a slightly similar format to the Blair Witch Project), the main thing that stood out for me was the lack of overacting and high-production. America being America, I feel like most modern American cinema is just too much. It’s like 99% of the people that sing the National Anthem. Just sing it, there’s no reason to overperform.



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6 Comments

Escape from Tomorrow

2/3/2016

10 Comments

 

D-
0.78

In a world of fake castles and anthropomorphic rodents, an epic battle begins when an unemployed father's sanity is challenged by a chance encounter with two underage girls on holiday.

Directed by Randy Moore

Initial Review by Chris Cook

PictureThe feeling you get when watching Escape from Tomorrow.
​“You have quite the imagination.” But sometimes, you can have a little too much.
 
First off, I praise the accomplishments of the crew of Escape from Tomorrow for using “guerilla” tactics to secretly film a motion picture at the Walt Disney parks. Reading on Wikipedia, cast members kept scripts on their phones and used simple equipment that tourists would record home movies on. I’m also glad a dark movie like this was filmed in black and white. Disney is quite the colorful place and it definitely would’ve had less of an effect.


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