Taking place in the hair-metal heyday of 1987, Rock of Ages jumps from Broadway to the big screen, and lands on its face with a thud. If it’s not the year’s most misbegotten big-studio project, I don’t wish to be exposed to what is. Talking and singing in a baby voice akin to nails on […]
comedy
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Something Big
Its unconventional, icky premise is that Baker really, really wants to get his hands on a Gatling gun, and black-market man Johnny Cobb (Albert Salmi, Caddyshack) really, really wants to get his hands on a woman, so Cobb proposes a trade: Bring him a woman, and he’ll give Baker a Gatling gun. See, it’s been […]
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Dark Shadows
Sporting spindly fingers à la 1922’s Nosferatu, Johnny Depp’s 18th-century vampire character of Barnabas Collins rises from the grave in 1972 where he’s puzzled by the high-tech times of television sets and breakfast waffles. He settles in with his descendants at their dreary Collinwood mansion, headed by matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer, who gets lovelier each […]
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Iron Sky
The Nazis mistake the landing as a prelude to an invasion, so the Third Reich prepares to strike the earth before the earth can strike it. Iron Sky has all the makings of a big batch of poor taste. Instead, it’s an inspired goof of a spoof that bridges the worlds of highbrow and lowbrow […]
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Little Shop of Horrors: The Director’s Cut
That’s one fun fact I learned, but the real draw of this release is the film’s Holy Grail: the 23-minute original ending in its entirety and in full-color — not the unfinished black-and-white version — and it’s Quite Something to See. As many Little Shop fans know, but thought they’d never view, the movie stayed […]
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Peace, Love & Misunderstanding
God knows this isn’t the first indie film to fall prey to contrivances, inept predictability and forced quirkiness. But what’s so perplexing is that Peace, now on DVD and Blu-ray after a small theatrical run, is made by such talented people. Its director is the usually dependable Bruce Beresford, whose credits range from Breaker Morant […]
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Klown
In order to convince his pregnant girlfriend (Mia Lyhne) that he is indeed “father material,” the goofy, gawky Frank (Frank Hvam) essentially kidnaps her 12-year-old nephew, Bo (Marcuz Jess Peterson), who’s staying with them while his parents are on vacation, and takes the pudgy, timid boy on a planned canoe trip. This comes to the […]
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General Education
Then again, it might not. Levi Collins (Chris Sheffield, Transformers: Dark of the Moon) is a Rushmore-esque high school senior so smart-ass, he has a sidekick. He also has a full college scholarship for tennis, but that’s in danger when he flunks science. In order to save it, he has to attend summer school without […]
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The Revenant
I was reminded of this by the trailer for The Revenant, which touts the zombie comedy as coming from “visionary filmmaker” Kerry Prior. If he’s so visionary, why wasn’t his film given a wide theatrical rollout? Why did it take three years for the 2009 production to hit video? And why does it bear so […]
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Sleepwalk with Me
Early in Sleepwalk with Me, protagonist Matt Pandamiglio (comedian Mike Birbiglia, more or less playing himself) addresses via narration the feelings his character holds for his live-in girlfriend, Abby (Lauren Ambrose, Wanderlust) with the lines, “I think falling in love for the first time is such a transcendent feeling. It’s like pizza-flavored ice cream: Your […]