Drama
Rod Lott
From 1953, Knights of the Round Table proudly boasts the CinemaScope logo as it opens, trumpeting itself as an epic Hollywood costumed drama on a massive scale: no expense spared, no detail ignored. And no story engagement.
Friday 24 May
OKG Newsletter
Topic: review
Knights of the Round Table
Good ‘Knight’? Not quite.
Drama
Rod Lott
From 1953, Knights of the Round Table proudly boasts the CinemaScope logo as it opens, trumpeting itself as an epic Hollywood costumed drama on a massive scale: no expense spared, no detail ignored. And no story engagement.
Cinema Verite
Be glad their family isn't yours.
Drama
Rod Lott
In 1971, the all-American, Nixon-loving clan known as the Loud family made history without even trying. They just allowed cameras into their lives for six months, and the result was PBS' An American Family, television's first reality series.
The Aggression Scale
Home, sweat home.
Thriller
Rod Lott
True to its title, The Aggression Scale begins quite aggressively: A woman just done with her daytime jog enters her home, whereupon a gunshot blasts her back out to her front yard. A hit man emerges and snaps a Polaroid for proof.
Dark Crimes
How to kill 3,640 minutes of time wisely.
Thriller
Rod Lott
Mill Creek Entertainment’s budget pack of noir, Dark Crimes, strongly goes against the notion that films in the public domain are there because they aren't any good. That’s nonsense.
Rogue River / The Collapsed
All washed up, all fall down.
The Deep Blue Sea
Rachel Weisz commits the vice of adultery in The Deep Blue Sea, a drama so pedestrian-paced, it makes sex look boring.
Turnpike Troubadours — Goodbye Normal Street
Country
Phil Bacharach
On Goodbye Normal Street, their third full-length album, Turnpike Troubadours serve up a potent brew of country, bluegrass, folk and even Creole (just to kick it up a notch). The quintet from Stillwater produces music that’s straightforward and simple, but hardly simplistic.
Perfect Sense
Love means never having to say ‘you’re sorry’ ... because your partner can’t hear you, anyway.
Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
If Contagion were exported to Scotland — and injected with a dose of speculative fiction in customs — the result might make Perfect Sense. The film fails only to fit snugly into one genre, being a thriller, a romance and sci-fi, but sci-fi only in the sense that Children of Men and Never Let Me Go were. This is equally brainy, and maybe just a smidge less bleak.
Act of Valor
By sea, by air, by land, with cheese.
Action
Rod Lott
“Based on real acts of valor,” Act of Valor may prove a better Navy recruitment film than action film in the short term. While not the first movie depicting Navy SEALs doing their thing, it's the first movie to do so starring actual, active-duty Navy SEALs. Seriously — for privacy reasons, their names aren't even in the credits.
Racing Dreams
Vroom to grow.
Documentary
Rod Lott
How many pre-teens not only have a idea of what they want to do with their life, but actually already are doing something about it? The answer: At least three, based upon those you'll meet in Racing Dreams, a fun, fast-paced, feature-length documentary about kids competing for the national karting championship as they chase hopeful NASCAR futures.
