The title refers to a stripper (Julin Jean, The Final) who is raped on the job by five guys in the “champagne room” at 3 a.m. Because one of them is a big construction honcho in the community and properly lawyered up, the cops do nothing. In revenge, her estranged brother (John Rodriguez) accidentally kills […]
review
Posted inArts & Culture
Of Dolls & Murder
What are nutshell studies? CSI viewers might recall season seven’s year-long arc of dollhouse miniatures of the crime scene left at each crime scene (“I think Malibu Barbie did it”). Those were based on the real-life models ranging from 1-inch- to 1-foot-scale, made with an über-meticulous attention to detail in the 1930s by the unheralded […]
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Best Laid Plans
Subbing as the British film’s George and Lenny are, respectively, drugged-out thug Danny (Stephen Graham, Al Capone in TV’s Boardwalk Empire) and mentally handicapped giant Joseph (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, TV’s Lost). The former enrolls the latter against his will in unregulated MMA scuffles for quick paydays. Danny and Joseph are friends out of necessity, depending upon […]
Posted inMusic
Django, Kill! (If You Live Shoot!)
After helping steal a trunkful of Wells Fargo gold, half-breed Django (Tomas Milian, Traffic) and his fellow minorities are not only denied their share by Oaks (Piero Lulli, My Name Is Nobody) and his evil white bandits, but gunned down and dumped in a mass grave they were forced to dig. Being the hero of […]
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The Deep Blue Sea
Written and directed by Terence Davies — who performed such duties on 2000’s well-received The House of Mirth and 1992’s The Long Day Closes — the film announces its dreary, depressing nature right from the opening scene, in which Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz, Dream House, The Lovely Bones) decides she wants to die. So she […]
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Black Limousine
At an AA meeting, Jack meets Hollywood actress Erica Long (Bijou Phillips, Hostel: Part II), who’s just as messed-up as he is. When he later sees her while on his job, he attempts to strike up a relationship, despite her extreme reluctance. His ability to listen wins her over, so things begin to look up […]
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Zoom In: Sex Apartments
The 1980 Japanese film is part of Impulse Pictures’ “Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection,” which would equate to a hard-R rating here. While nudity is often, it’s all above-the-belt, frontally speaking, and this work in particular is like a Skinemax flick with an actual plot, and where sex is integral to the story. Well, sorta. That […]
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Nobody Else but You
A rather unconventional murder mystery fueled by the power and pain of celebrity, Nobody Else but You plays Saturday night as part of Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s French Cinema Week. Originally titled Poupoupidou in its native France for reasons that quickly become apparent, writer/director Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s film stars Jean-Paul Rouve (La vie en rose) […]
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Too Big to Fail
For this streamlined adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s nonfiction best-seller of the same name, director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) centers the story around the one man who had possibly the worst great job at the time: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson (a very good William Hurt, The Incredible Hulk). In trying to prevent […]
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Extraterrestrial
The Spanish-language film is a boy-meets-girl story under the threat of an alien invasion. Julio (Julián Villagrán) and Julia (Michelle Jenner) awake in her apartment after a drunken one-night stand neither remembers. Of more concern is that the streets are empty and an alien ship hovers overhead menacingly. They’re pestered by a nosy neighbor (Carlos […]