Tag Archives: Drama

The Abandoned (2006)

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This is a film from the After Dark Horror Fest that is considered by many to be one out of the pack. It’s a film that managed to grow apart from the horror festival and that seemed like a good thing. Is “The Abandoned” as great as I’d heard? I had to find out. Nacho Cerdà’s supernatural thriller reminded me very much of “Silent Hill,” except Cerdà doesn’t solely rely on visuals to keep the audience watching. What’s behind “The Abandoned,” is a morbid and utterly unnerving tale about murder, torture, and our fear of being alone in the world.

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An Unfinished Life (2005)

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1661393hI wasn’t expecting much from “An Unfinished Life,” that much is true. Not even Robert Redford can turn a bad movie into a watchable one. But after I was finished with it, I liked it. It’s cheesy in some parts, and recycled, but in the end I’d enjoyed spending almost two hours with these characters. Hell, even Morgan Freeman, whose character Mitch is just another variation on his character from “Million Dollar Baby,” even was an interesting character. Freeman is able to be likable in basically anything he’s in and he’s become a rare commodity in Hollywood, which happens to be a damn shame. The man is too talented for narration, and appearing for five minutes as a mentor to someone.

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Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot) (2002)

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sympathy-for-mr-vengeancPerhaps I wasn’t paying attention, or perhaps I was just falling asleep after the first hour of nothing, but I couldn’t understand about sixty percent of what occurred in “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.” Whether or not Park actually tells the story jumping from different time to time, I’ll never know, because characters I thought died pop up later, and events that suddenly never happened, leads to something unexpected. Park’s story is awfully disjointed to the point where I couldn’t even catch up.

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Hot Rods to Hell (1967)

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“Hot Rods to Hell” is a youth gone wild, sixties morality tale about damn juvenile delinquents raising pure hell on Mr. and Mrs. Americana of the traditional Nuclear family. Before the real free revolution, “Hot Rods to Hell” was another glance at the youth tearing down good old fashioned America, and it was deemed much too risqué to play for television. Made for television, ironically, the studios shipped it out into theaters, and drive-ins and it’s quite a messy little clunker with an utterly simplistic plot. A mixture of “Beach Blanket Bingo,” “Last House on the Left,” and “Leave it to Beaver,” John Brahm’s “Hot Rods to Hell” sets down on a family called the Hills who go on a road trip to move to the desert. On the way there they come across a group of sadistic hot rodders who really want to make their lives a living hell from now on.

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Rosario Tijeras (2005)

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Flora Martinez, aside from being absolutely beautiful and incredibly sexy, also provides a very good performance for “Rosario Tijeras” as the tragic and sometimes despicable Rosario who objectifies men the way she was objectified all of her life. She’s a being incapable of genuine love, and also seems incapable of finding true love. She’s someone who is used for her body, and carried around like a trophy, thus leads her own downfall in the face of her diminishing personal welfare. Her constant manipulation of her male counterparts is often achieved through her irresistible sex appeal, and this will often leave male audiences at a crossroads. The surefire draw should have been the lovely and vivacious Flora Martinez, who is an interesting choice for the lead of this snake of a woman. But then, at the end of it, I was pretty anxious to shut it off and move on.

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29 Reasons to Run (2006)

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I’m sick of road trip flicks, I’m sick of coming of age flicks, and with all due respect to our indie audience, I’m sick of movies about relationships with narration. “29 Reasons to Run,” however, completely made me re-think that thought process. I shouldn’t write off the road trip flick just yet. That would be unfair. Weeks’ and O’ Steen’s ambitious film raises the argument for the road trip flick and restores hope that there’s still a lot more to be done with the sub-genre. In some moments it can resemble an ABC drama, but I don’t hold that against it. “29 Reasons to Run” is about two men facing a dead end in their life, and decide they have to travel the road, which may be great for a novel “Sideways”?

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Elizabethtown (2005)

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I always try to give my favorite directors the benefit of the doubt. Regardless of their work, I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt. What’s so wrong about a dude who met a chick, and the chick helped the dude learn how to live his life, and now the dude has a different outlook on life than the dude before him? Nothing. Nothing! I’ve been that dude, I’ve met that chick, and I say more, Cameron, more, dude! Cameron Crowe is not all about the pimple dick man being helped by a strong woman, it’s a young man learning about life from a special woman. I love that. As for Kirsten Dunst, the melon head is an actress I rather enjoy. In her high points, and utter low points, the woman is easy to look at, and easy to endure.

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