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dangelo
I'm Gonna Explode (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico): 62Except they're not, is the thing. What they're actually gonna do is enact the most desultory, useless lovers-on-the-lam scenario ever, "fleeing" to a tent on the roof of Román's family's posh home and then sneaking downstairs to almost fuck after everyone leaves. Their whole adventure could ...
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Posted on 09/30/2008 by
dangelo
Afterschool (Antonio Campos, USA): 94Remember in Mulholland Dr. when that creepy dude points at the headshot and says, flatly, "This is the girl"? Try to imagine me heavier and much more intimidating as I tell you with equally unshakable certitude: This is the film. All of 23 years old at ...
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Posted on 09/30/2008 by
dangelo
Serbis (Brillante Ma. Mendoza, DGPI; Phillipines/France): 40Not sure I can really improve on the Twitter review: "Here's an environment. Do you like my environment? Immerse yourself in the environment I offer you. That is all." Endlessly trailing members of an extended family up and down the stairs and across the waterlogged floors ... read morePosted on 09/30/2008 by dangelo 24 City (Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong/Japan): 58Because I (as usual) went in totally tabula rasa, my reaction to Jia's latest must perforce be divided into two radically oppositional eras: BJC and AJC. Before Joan Chen showed up, 24 City struck me as a fairly staid but nonetheless often engrossing documentary -- yet another troubling portrait of ... read morePosted on 09/29/2008 by dangelo Bullet in the Head (Jaime Rosales, Spain/France): 25Wish I had the technical know-how to put together the Jaime Rosales version of, say, Pulp Fiction, just to give you a rough idea of how bold and unprecedented and ambitious and unbelievably fucking tedious this movie is. Instead I'll have to attempt it with words. So imagine that Tarantino's ... read morePosted on 09/29/2008 by dangelo Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK): 59Thought McQueen was doing something amazingly daring for a while, but it turns out to be only semi-daring. Basically, the third act kind of ruins the movie for me -- partly because that's the point at which it finally becomes the straightforward Bobby Sands martyrdom saga ...
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Posted on 09/29/2008 by
dangelo
TIFF FILM REVIEWS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH[Kill me now. I almost went to see Burn After Reading again, just to cleanse myself of all this art-film torpor, but it's playing at the Scotiabank and I'm there most of tomorrow anyway, so I'll wait a day.] Salamandra (Pablo Agüero, France/Germany): read more
Posted on 09/17/2008 by
dangelo
TIFF FILM REVIEWS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, Canada): 63 Posted on 09/17/2008 by
dangelo
TIFF FILM REVIEWS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10TH35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis, France): 69 [Claire Denis movies tend to be glancing, allusive affairs, and there are moments here -- most notably the titular ritual and the nature of the celebration taking place in the final scene -- that strike me as ...
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Posted on 09/17/2008 by
dangelo
TIFF FILM REVIEWS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9THWhat Doesn't Kill You (Brian Goodman, USA): W/O [...will evidently convince you that the world needs yet another wholly derivative movie about the downward spiral of two petty criminals. Didn't Ethan Hawke ever stop for a moment and say, "Wait a minute, I just fucking ...
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Posted on 09/17/2008 by
dangelo
TIFF FILM REVIEWS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8THAdam Resurrected (Paul Schrader, Germany/Israel/USA):50 Jeff Goldblum was the wrong choice for the title role, I think -- not just because his distinctive stop-start cadence sounds weird underneath a German accent, but because his general air of perpetual amusement is fundamentally at odds with Adam Stein's deep-rooted sense of self-loathing. (Dafoe, ... read more Posted on 09/10/2008 by dangelo TIFF FILM REVIEWS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7THBlindness (Fernando Meirelles, Canada/Brazil/Japan):23 For now, I'm gonna go ahead and trust that people who speak highly of the source novel -- including, indirectly, the '98 Nobel committee -- aren't completely insane. But the book's genius must reside almost entirely in Saramago's prose style, because boiled down to its narrative essence, ... read more Posted on 09/10/2008 by dangelo TIFF FILM REVIEWS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6THAdoration (Atom Egoyan, Canada):60In which our hero, after a decade's worth of laudable but never quite satisfying attempts to stretch 'n' grow, finally gives up and retreats to his signature style: chilly, stilted, intricately fragmented, solemnly ludicrous. For this rabid fan of old-school Egoyan, it felt like a homecoming, ... read more Posted on 09/08/2008 by dangelo TIFF FILM REVIEWS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5THBurn After Reading (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, USA):82 Partisans and detractors alike are dismissing this misanthropic marvel as a slight, meaningless comedy, when in fact it's far more probing and trenchant, in its defiantly goofy way, than No Country for Old Men. Basically it's Blood Simple played for laughs, ... read more Posted on 09/07/2008 by dangelo TIFF FILM REVIEWS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4THSnow (Aida Begic, Bosnia & Herzegovina/Germany/France/Iran):55 Incantatory visual/rhythmic sense compensates for banal Cherry Orchard narrative -- will these Bosnian war widows sell their poor but picturesque village to Serbian developers? -- and a certain thudding inevitability. Yes, it snows at the end. Adhen (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, France/Algeria):W/O Briefly got excited when I thought this ... read more Posted on 09/07/2008 by dangelo TREELESS MOUNTAIN AND GOMORRAHTreeless Mountain (So Yong Kim, USA/South Korea): 41 For fuck's sake plant something. In Between Days didn't exactly feel sui generis, but Kim's take on adolescent fumbling and dislocated yearning was nonetheless distinct and nuanced, predicated upon characters and situations that were both archetypal and slightly off-kilter. Without puberty to confuse ... read more Posted on 09/06/2008 by dangelo |
