Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Anna (2012)

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The cast and crew really bring together what I can only describe as a short and sweet bit of sweet payback cinema that involves a woman who has just about had enough with her life. How many of us have the balls to go out there and take life by the cojones and risk it all to tell people what we really think about them? Once and for all Anna has decided to play by her own rules and after smashing her fist in to a mirror ventures out in to the world staring down a crude construction worker, telling off her boss and putting an end to a would be mugger that inevitably puts her in to the arms of her co-worker she’s infatuated with.

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Gut (2012)

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gutbanner1It’s very rare that independent horror movies manage to make me turn away from the screen and cringe. Not even Tom Six’s “Human Centipede” accomplished that and those movies were desperate to be considered disturbing. “Gut” and its beauty is in what is not completely put in front of the screen. Director Elias has every chance to be gratuitous, gory, and absolutely grotesque, but “Gut” isn’t for the grue fans, so much as it is for folks who appreciate delving in to the disturbing corners of the mind. The corners that elicit arousal that would be otherwise deemed taboo by civilized human beings. We all have that darkness within our mind that find something somewhat enticing, and the same can be said for character Tom, whose friend and consistent hanger on Dan, shows him a special kind of erotic film that not only embeds itself in to their minds, but haunts Tom until he begins to re-assess his feelings for the film in general.

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Bully (2012)

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bully-poster02The opening minutes of “Bully” are perhaps the best summary of the bullying dilemma you can imagine. It’s a moment so wrought with accuracy, victims of bullying will nod to themselves thinking “Happens to me all the time!” During one moment after school recess, the local school principal is trying to sort out a fight between two boys who had a fist fight. She demands they both shake hands. One boy sticks his hand out without hesitation and a blank expression, even leaning forward to shake. The other boy refuses, and has a stand off, angrily nodding his head near tears. The principal sends off the first boy, commending him for his kindness, and scolds the angry child for being defiant, chastising him for refusing to settle things. The boy explains that no matter how much he apologizes, he continues being tormented by the other child. The teacher refuses to allow any instance of continuing the conflict resolution and suggests “being friends.” Its small moments like this that continues furthering the idea that bullying as a whole, is a minor issue that really should be dealt with like any other child issue.

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The Man With the Iron Fists (2012)

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Man-With-The-Iron-Fists-Poster-2It’s disheartening to see that deep down, composer and hip hop artist RZA is just another filmmaker who wants to be Quentin Tarantino. It’s not a surprise to fuel the funding for “The Man with the Iron Fists,” he teams up with another popular Tarantino wannabe Eli Roth, to make a film that desperately wants to be “Kill Bill.” Tarantino can often border on obnoxious with his films, so for wannabes to keep popping up delivering relentlessly obnoxious throwbacks feels like a waste of time and resources. I assume RZA and writer Eli Roth imagined this being shown in double bills with the “Kill Bill” series or, at least “Grindhouse.” RZA displays all the hallmarks of a man anxious to be considered in the realm of Quentin Tarantino’s wonderful chop socky tribute “Kill Bill.”

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Swine (2012)

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Swine3_castThe Brothers Levitch’s “Swine” is a film that’s right up my alley. Told in three parts, “Swine” is a post apocalyptic steam punk Western that takes two warring groups of soldiers and pits them against each other in a wasteland void of human decency and nobility. This reminded me an awful lot of “Firefly” and in many respects it has that epic potential because “Swine” has a really good head on its shoulder with a creative vision that can make it a hit at festivals and garner an immense fan base. I sure as hell would follow this if it became a feature length film. In a world where all law has been abolished, there are two fronts on the battlefield.

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Green Lantern: Extended Cut (2011) [Blu-ray]

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i07x4wSIt’s a shame when a movie has such potential to be greater than the whole of its sum and fails to live up to it in the end. That’s the case with “Green Lantern,” a movie with great promise to be one hell of a space epic with fantastical elements and a killer weapon, and yet… when all is said and done, “Green Lantern” is just a rank mess, a blunder of script faults and horrible exposition that jumps from scene to scene and only manages to pick up once our hero Hal becomes the Green Lantern. And then when he becomes the Green Lantern it’s all the movie is about. He becomes the Green Lantern and…? Nothing else. “Green Lantern” has the promise to be so much more than it puts on the screen, but what it makes up for in action set pieces it lacks in severely uninteresting characters.

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Melancholia (2011)

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66265558Lars Von Trier’s examination of the apocalypse is a truly divine and ethereal cinematic experience that not only dares to explore the lasting effects of the end of the world, but also dwells on two states of mind concerning the end of the world. Like “On the Beach,” Von Trier examines the world putting on a show for itself in the wake of the apocalypse. In this version of the end of the world, Earth is destined to clash with an unknown planet from behind the sun. After centuries hidden, the planet tagged Melancholia by Earth’s denizens, has finally reached Earth’s orbit and is destined to smash in to our planet as the days progress.

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