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iconogassed
Criticker Zealot - 7280 Film Ratings
Member Since: 26 Apr 2008
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75 64% Danny Says Danny Says (2016) - Rated 29 Nov 2020
"On the appeal, potential power, & limited financial returns of the coolest guy in the room. Fields described himself as giving a "less than celestial performance" in this, but then he would. Like I would know, right? I do know there's a solid two minutes of him making fun of the Edgar Winter Group that is fucking priceless. Or the way he still refers to "that Van Halen guy"? From the same Village apartment he's lived in for 30 years? Commitment. (The "Russian Mafia" would evict him soon after.)"
70 53% The Last Dance The Last Dance (2020) - Rated 27 Aug 2020
"Love how no matter his singular ability or editorial control Jordan's life still comes off like an Elmore Leonard novel. Gambling sprees with dudes named Slim Bouler and Dick Esquinas. Minor league baseball hijinx. The, uhm, disappearance and brutal murder of his father. This one kind of got away from me."
50 27% Regression Regression (2015) - Rated 15 Oct 2020
"The Satanic Ritual Abuse scare has gone virtually unfilmed despite producing the longest and costliest American trial ever (and many slightly less ignominious episodes). It can't be comfortably reconciled with certain assumptions since deemed sacred, but there's also the practicality of it: how to believably portray something so ridiculous, rampant, recent? This subjective, fever-dreamy approach from the POV of a true believer doesn't really work but is kind of interesting as an experiment."
65 45% Lone Survivor Lone Survivor (2013) - Rated 27 Sep 2020
"Claims of propaganda are highly selective. The heroes discuss and are prepared to execute unarmed children, the only objection that they might get caught. They then learn that combat means being torn apart piece by piece until there is nothing of you left, an insane and agonizing process leavened only by occasional moments of self-delusion. And even if you can somehow hold on, your army's poor resource management will fuck you over. Real NATION'S PRIDE material all right."
70 53% Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget (2008) - Rated 09 May 2020
"A long, long time ago, before Twitter murdered comedy and sent its widow a corsage made of carpet samples and Chinese newspapers, Norm Macdonald's set here was a lightning rod for the worst people alive: comedy nerds. But hey, when you're right, you're right. Wait, did I say right? I meant white. So. Fucking. White. ANYWAZE it plays just as brilliantly now, even/especially as he's sewn the schtick into a great American(adian) laff quilt which is to say high and strangely poignant aesthetic ideal"
95 95% Strangers in Good Company Strangers in Good Company (1990) - Rated 15 Jul 2020
"A group of women on a unspecified trip generously detour to one's childhood retreat. The bus breaks down, and they find themselves stranded but not necessarily ill-prepared, pooling their experience in fishing & folk-healing & fixing frog legs for supper. Death is ever-present and yet this is a warm and joyous film, frequently funny, no melodrama. The women play themselves, improvising out of their memories, yet without sentimentality. And all gorgeously filmed: painterly yet spontaneous. My."
100 98% Benjamin Smoke Benjamin Smoke (2000) - Rated 10 Mar 2021
"Benjamin and GG Allin were both queer artists whose pansexuality was inextricable from their infamous performances; who proselytized with poignant naivete for the Dionysian ecstasies of rock and roll; whose substance-heavy pursuit of said ecstasies led to like deaths at like ages. Diff is one was a bore and a sadist (a forseeable result of adding childhood abuse to the equation), the other a gentle and soulful man who made music you might actually want to listen to: https://tinyurl.com/3hjfkvhd"
50 27% Betrayed Betrayed (1988) - Rated 12 Mar 2021
"You can say this for Eszterhas: he was the first Hollywood screenwriter to attempt a warning in the wake of Alan Berg's murder. He knew Nazism well, and this is kind of interesting in its portrayal of homegrown American fascism borne of capitalist rape (and, uh, class resentment). It even features what is likely the first on-screen depiction of racist radicalization on the internet. And yet the mechanics of the plot are so phony and contrived as to kill the whole thing. Some awful dialogue, too"
90 89% September 30, 1955 September 30, 1955 (1977) - Rated 01 Sep 2021
"There's a moment here with Blount's character (you'll know it) that got me plain giddy realizing that the undercurrents of weirdness would now flow freely, and boy do they. This is a great movie that takes great risks in showing the ways movies affect and infect, with a GREAT final shot that brings things full circle (in more ways than one) and points forward with a remarkable mix of poignancy and if not cynicism, then a dark wryness, to the regeneration of the modern myths so memorably explored"
45 21% Manhunt Manhunt (2017) - Rated 18 Sep 2020
"Working the "linguistic forensics" of Don Foster into the über-composite lead cop character is a monumentally dumb decision that the series never really overcomes. The sections focusing on Henry Murray and MKUltra are atrocious in style and sub-Simple-English-Wikipedia in intellectual heft. Please, please instead read Alston Chase's 'A Mind for Murder' or especially the late Michael Mello's 'The United States of America vs. Theodore John Kaczynski: Ethics, Power, and the Making of the Unabomber"