Two brothers (Kavan Smith, TV’s “Eureka,” and Colby Johannson, “Final Destination 3”) who work in construction in the depressed small town of Redeemer, Idaho, see a downed Russian satellite crash into a nearby field. The object’s pieces are covered in some sort of green alien slime that looks like Silly String and moves like The […]
Rod Lott
Posted inArts & Culture
The Devil’s Rock
The structure is “The Devil’s Rock” of this New Zealand fantasy’s title. Inside, they meet a representative of their Nazi enemy, Col. Meyer (Matthew Sunderland) who warns them of the shrieking woman’s voice they hear. Halfway into the film, when we finally see why: She’s hot! See, the imprisoned woman looks just like Capt. Grogan’s […]
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A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
I’m not the target for these movies, as I do not find the mere sight and/or mention of someone toking up to be funny. Nor do I get why it’s supposed to be. As with any joke, there’s got to be a payoff. Perhaps the sky-high are much forgiving. I thought the first movie, 2004’s […]
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Whitechapel: The Ripper Returns
That’s a tough case to crack, especially when Chandler’s fellow squad members — who heavily resent his promotion in the first place — don’t buy in to his theory. But this BBC tale being titled “Whitechapel,” after all, we know that Chandler is correct. And that revelation — strengthened with the discovery of each subsequent […]
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30 Rock: Season 5
Now that “Season 5” is here — all 22 episodes, all three discs — I realize how much I genuinely missed its regular presence. While no longer the award-hogging “it” comedy it once was, it’s still scene-to-scene hilarious. The start of the season finds the gang at “TGS” in flux. Overeager former NBC page Kenneth […]
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Point Blank
As its title suggests, the “Fugitive”-esque “Point Blank” begins at rapid fire, with our protagonist, Samuel (Gilles Lellouche, “Mesrine: Killer Instinct”), literally running for his life, not to mention that of his wife. A quick flashback reveals the reason why: Witnessing a car crash, Samuel swoops in and puts his nursing skills to good use […]
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Take Shelter
Right out of the gate, this act of weird weather alerts audience that something bad is going to happen, and the calm before the storm will be anything but serene. Strangely, Curtis (Michael Shannon, TV’s “Boardwalk Empire”), a blue-collar worker in a small town in Ohio, is the only one who notices how different the […]
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Period of Adjustment / Tall Story
She plays Isabel, a nurse from Sweetwater, Texas, who impulsively quits her job because she’s just as impulsively married one of her patients, George (Jim Hutton), a Korean War vet with a serious case of the shakes. Their union is off to a less-than-stellar start; Isabel erupts in tears leaving the church because he’s driving […]
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First Squad: The Moment of Truth
The alt-history animation centers on Division Six, a do-gooder group of mentally linked youths who use the gifts of astrology, clairvoyance and hypnosis against legendary sorcerer/black-arts practitioner Baron von Wolff and his wizard warriors. After having bloodily slaughtered a Russian village to smithereens, the Baron — aka the Angel of Death — is pursued by […]
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Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Starting in 1994 on the East Coast, Justin Duerr did; he wondered what it meant. The more he encountered them, the more his interest was piqued. Curiosity beget obsession when an in-its-infancy Internet search yielded no results, and the documentary “Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles” follows Duerr in his roughly 15-year search […]