xacviant

There's a great film lurking within LOOPER, and there are definitely places where it becomes one: the hedonism of the Loopers out on the town, a montage of 30 years of dissolution, violence, and redemption, crackling action scenes, a tense breakfast between a man and his older self--and then there are the clunky lines, the underdeveloped ideas, the wobbly ending, Paul fucking Dano--it adds up to an uneven experience with good performances (though Emily Blunt is miscast) and solid handling.

63 _16%

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) - Rated 20 Jul 2011

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, best known for the Thunderbirds, also wrote and produced this piece of hard science fiction, dealing with the discovery of a perfect mirror of Earth on the opposite side of the sun. An interesting idea, but one that doesn't really work as a film; the results are fairly dull and sterile, despite competent acting. The confusing climax doesn't help, although the intriguing final scene and some cool touches throughout, like the fake-eyeball spycam, do.

73 _31%

The Rum Diary (2011) - Rated 30 Oct 2011

THE RUM DIARY, for significant stretches of its running time, achieves a loose, semi-surreal tone that feels liberated from the shackles of a traditional narrative. But at other times, it tries for a plot involving a shady developer (Aaron Eckhart), which doesn't really catch fire, and it ends on a decidedly weak note. The performances help a great deal; Johnny Depp is good, but Giovanni Ribisi, as the indescribable Moberg, steals the show (and deserves awards); points also for the local flavor.

90 _91%

Wake in Fright (1971) - Rated 05 Feb 2013

An Outback schoolteacher (Gary Bond) finds himself stranded in "the Yabba", an isolated town where the pastimes range from gambling at two-up (a glorified coin toss), to binge drinking, to kangaroo hunts as brutal as they are chaotic. The teacher goes through all of this...and a good deal more. The atmosphere is personified by the bestial fallen intellectual, Doc (Donald Pleasance, who's brilliant). A fascinating, horrifying road to ruin, this; Ted Kotcheff's direction is unflinchingly surreal.

87 _79%

The Angel Levine (1970) - Rated 21 Jul 2011

Jan Kadar's strange Jewish fable takes an interesting but flawed short story and makes a fascinating film of it. Zero Mostel gets a chance to show how good a dramatic actor he was (and how much of a ham he could be), while Harry Belafonte shines as the atypical angel, sent to help Mostel, a wretched New York tailor. A far more thoughtful and melancholy treatment of this well-worn premise than most; a bit self-consciously arty at times but fascinating and handsomely crafted.

23 _4%

$What to Expect When You\$

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) - Rated 20 May 2012

Painful on pretty much every level--the humor isn't funny, the drama isn't poignant, it's boring, overlong, offensive, it's shallow, it panders...the large cast ranges from the likable (Elizabeth Banks, Dennis Quaid) to the boring (most of the cast), to the depressing (Chris Rock), to the intolerable (Ben Falcone). The script is lazy, the attitudes cliched, the characters shrill as all hell...the golf cart race was fun, though. Pregnant mothers should not watch this, or anyone who has been born.

0 _0%

Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984) - Rated 16 Dec 2012

It's hard to call this the worst film ever made, because it isn't really a film; shot on shitteo, with virtually no plot, writing, acting or directing on display, it serves more as a subterranean fragment, a fascinatingly inept (and outrageously padded, even at 74 minutes--the credits go on forfuckingever) pseudo-horror/pseduo-porno artifact that manages to be hugely sexist into the bargain. But let's be honest, could anyone ever take this seriously enough to be offended by it? Or at all? (No.)

94 _98%

Melancholia (2011) - Rated 25 Nov 2011

I've enjoyed all of von Trier's work, but MELANCHOLIA THRILLED me--and may it thrill you, dealing as it does with the end of our world. Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Kiefer Sutherland are all brilliant. von Trier's script is beautifully constructed: tragic, funny, and highly quotable. His direction is grave and graceful, creating (with Manuel Claro) an endless feast of beautiful images, finally blending Wagner and apocalypse in one of the most spellbinding endings in film history.

8 _1%

The Wicker Tree (2010) - Rated 29 May 2012

Often, watching a film I find lacking, I ask, "Where's the good?" The good, however, is not to be found in THE WICKER TREE. It's a film best watched with a dropped jaw and raised eyebrows. Robin Hardy's clumsy, lifeless direction further dooms his monumentally asinine script (Anthony Shaffer is MUCH missed); the acting is uniformly awful, with the worst Texan accents on record; the cinematography is mediocre; it's boring; it somehow messes up gratuitous nudity. It is an undiluted disaster.

84 _66%

Profound Desires of the Gods (1968) - Rated 19 Feb 2012

Shohei Imamura's mammoth portrait of life on an isolated Japanese island, focusing on a family who believe themselves cursed and an engineer who comes to help develop the island, but finds himself drawn into the madness. Death, incest, shamanism, and folklore all factor into the mix, and while it's overlong and often repetitive (with an iffy coda), it boasts fine acting (especially Hideko Okiyama as the retarded daughter), gorgeous cinematography, and portrays a genuinely fascinating world.