Mini-Review: After his surprising stint as the director of the colossally commercial Spider-Man trilogy, Raimi finally returns to doing what he does best. Drag Me to Hell is unlikely to disappoint even the snobbiest of Evil Dead connoisseurs. Together with his earlies, with which it shares a common vision, motifs and stylistic trademarks, it should unequivocally secure Raimi's position in the canon of horror auteurs as the master of hair-raising (and hilarious) supernatural horror.
Mini-Review: A unique and unforgettable film. It boggles the mind that today people are watching crappy remakes of classics such as this... is it that painful to get a hold of a good 30 year-old movie instead of going out and seeing a bad new remake?
Mini-Review: Just loathesome. The writing is terrible, the cookie-cutter directing incorporates all the tested cliches to look "stylish", unwarranted as they may be, and the movie is morally misguided to put it gently. The performances didn't blow me away either.
Mini-Review: Skip Friedkin's disappointing remake and watch Henri-Georges Clouzot's original, Wages of Fear, instead.
Mini-Review: This work is a superb example of coercive persuasion for many reasons, not the least of which being that like all good propaganda, it pretends to be a groundbreaking exposition of propaganda. That the conspiracy theories herein are actually convincing to a certain audience is a testament to the efficiency of its tactics; it begins on relatively steady ground and uses the momentum, and the same authoritative tone, to progress to disinformation and the incitement of moral panic.
Mini-Review: The Holocaust wasn't so bad, it was kind of like a summer camp. If only Jews were to take it with a grain of salt, have some fun during it. So the Germans weren't nice, so what? It's not like it was dehumanization and the systematic torture and massacre of millions or anything (besides, Jews had it coming to them for the crucifixion). This in essence is Benigni's underlying message in this movie. And the more scrutiny it is subjected to the more it astounds in its deliberation and forethought.
Mini-Review: The backdrop of the "religious Zionist" society - the settlers - has virtually no bearing on the central subjects of this movie. Director Cedar is an ex-settler who drifted toward the political left, and the apolitical Campfire is a possible attempt to give a human face to a sector that is maligned and unpopular even among Israeli audiences. What we get is a very typical Israeli melodrama with familiar themes and derivative plot devices, but a slightly different setting.
Mini-Review: Ignoring the real forces at play behind Palestinian terrorism - indoctrination since childhood, radical Islamism, antisemitism, this subtle propaganda film spins the touching yarn of two handsome youths who by no fault of their own decide to snuff a busful of innocent lives. It even spares us the horrific key scene - the mass-murder, presumably because the dead Jews are not the issue. Its climax consists of Said moping about how his dad's being a collaborator was a blow to the family's dignity.
Mini-Review: Dreyer's is the most depressing cinematic world ever. Everyday life is furnished with death, disease, hatred and madness. Dreyer wraps it in a metaphysic that is not one of existential vacuum but of honest-to-God religious conceptions, though not very optimistic ones. In Day of Wrath there is an interdependence of right and wrong, redemption and damnation, love and spite, fact and fiction, heaven and hell... and you have to be dead to get the upper hand in a conflict.
Mini-Review: Matthew Perry falls off a bridge and gets sucked into a vortex that magically transforms him into Zac Efron. He then uses his youthful disguise to score with his hot daughter. Okay, no, that's not what happens, but that would have made for a better movie.