New to Blu-ray following a much-buzzed-about VOD and limited theatrical run, the IFC Films release casts a voyeuristic eye on Los Angeles couple Tara (tabloid fixture Lindsay Lohan, Liz & Dick) and Christian (porn star James Deen, Anal Buffet 8). They’ve been together for one year, but their bedroom — and other areas of their […]
sex
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Saturn 3
The 1980 box-office bomb takes place on an experimental research station on a moon of the title’s ringed planet. For three years, scientist Adam (ol’ butt-chinned Kirk Douglas) has worked there to solve Earth’s hunger problem hydroponically, alongside Alex (Farrah Fawcett, The Cannonball Run), his much younger partner — in the lab and the space-disco […]
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Eve of Destruction
A female take on The Terminator, 1991’s Eve of Destruction casts the robot, named Eve VIII, in the spittin’ image of its creator, Dr. Eve Simmons (Renée Soutendijk, the Dutch actress known for early Paul Verhoeven films). Eve VIII also shares Dr. Eve’s thoughts and memories, which gets really interesting when it begins acting out […]
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Caesar and Otto’s Deadly Xmas
Caesar (Dave Campfield, also the writer/director/producer/editor) is an anal-retentive wannabe actor who lives with his slob of a half-brother, Otto (Paul Chomicki), a guy still bearing a torch for a girl from school. She sells used shaving cream — a line that sums up everything that is wrong about this movie. In order to impress […]
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We’re the Millers
Scruffy pot dealer David Clark (Jason Sudeikis, The Campaign) already is in the hole for $43,000 when being robbed worsens his situation. Desperate cash flows call for desperate measures, in the form of a sleazy businessman (Ed Helms, The Hangover Part III) offering to erase David’s debt and pay him 100 grand to smuggle “a smidge” […]
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Short Term 12
Although she has been acting since the age of 8, Brie Larson only started to become “a thing” in 2009, as the daughter of Toni Collette’s dissociative-identity housewife on the Showtime series United States of Tara. For all three seasons, the 20-something Larson stood out by playing sassy, brassy and smug. She was so good […]
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Dallas Buyers Club
With Dallas Buyers Club, director Jean-Marc Vallée (The Young Victoria) takes the cinematic liberty to tell Woodroof’s story, revisiting the 1980s during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when rampant conservatism, Reagan’s War on Drugs and the Christian right dominated American culture. In what appears to be the role of his career, an overwhelmingly […]
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Clear History
Clear History sure is, if more amusing than actually funny. Its intermittent focus is by nature of a purposely skeletal script to allow a wide berth for Curb-style improv; the feature length just magnifies those inherent faults. In 2003, marketing exec Nathan Flomm (David, sporting a downright biblical beard) gives up his 10-percent stake in […]
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Body Bags / Assault on Precinct 13
The opener is the best of the bunch, documenting the first — and quite possibly the last — night shift worked by a pretty young college student (Alex Datcher, Passenger 57) at a gas station. She sits locked in the cashier’s booth as a serial killer lurks close. The suspense gets to her as much as […]
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Samson & Delilah
Not much happens in the movie, at least initially, which I suppose is entirely the point. When he’s not huffing gasoline, teenage Samson (Rowan McNamara) ambles about his surroundings — empty fridge, dirty water, hard floors, merciless sun — and listens to music and screws around in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, his sorta-kinda girlfriend, Delilah (Marissa […]