Three years after a horrific car crash all but destroyed her will to live, Jenna (Scout Taylor-Compton of Rob Zombie’s pair of Halloween remakes) takes a much-needed vacay with three pals to a lakeside cabin for some R-and-R. Part of the agenda includes drinking brewskies in the sauna, then jumping into the lake to cool […]
thriller
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Argo
There’s no way the movie industry could have resisted this stranger-than-fiction yarn. The film chronicles how CIA operative Tony Mendez (Affleck) saved the six by establishing a phony cover story that they were a Canadian movie crew scouting locations in Tehran for a science-fiction cheapie titled Argo. Details of that real-life mission would not be […]
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Sinister
Had I been watching it at home, alone, on a dark and stormy night, my neck likely would be sore by the end of it, from making repeated glances behind the couch — you know, just to be safe. It’s this year’s Insidious: well-built, respectful of audience members’ intelligence and yet genuinely freaky. Ethan Hawke […]
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Flying Swords of Dragon Gate
Lately — and all too quietly — the Indomina label has been releasing some excellent packages of Asian action films I’m afraid otherwise would go unseen by North American audiences: True Legend, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame and now, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate. Apparently a sequel and/or semi-remake of 1992’s […]
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Chained
After catching a movie, a woman (Julia Ormond, TV’s Mad Men) and her young son (Evan Bird, TV’s The Killing) take a cab to get home, but the cabbie isn’t really a cabbie. He’s Bob (Vincent D’Onofrio, Full Metal Jacket), a lisping serial killer of “whores.” Bob offs the mom, but keeps the kid as […]
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Weird-Noir
In true B-programmer form, let’s run through each with sterling efficiency: Girl on the Run (1953) This may be the only noir set at a carnival with a burlesque show featuring a tummy-rifiic dancer in a Catwoman mask. In fact, I’m counting on it. Cops are there searching for Bill Martin (Richard Coogan, TV’s Captain […]
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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: Anniversary Edition
Both sibs are former stars. Baby Jane (Davis) was a child star, “the diminutive dancing Duse from Duluth” who entertained vaudeville audiences until she could no longer get away with a spoiled brat. Blanche (Crawford) became a leading lady of the silver screen later in life, but her glory waned long ago. Now, Blanche is […]
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The Tall Man
In just under two hours, a 36-hour ordeal is told, focusing on Julia (Jessica Biel, Total Recall), a free-clinic nurse turned supermom when her Chucky doll-looking son is kidnapped by The Tall Man. He drives a rusty van that practically screams “child molester.” I’ll give the film by writer/director Pascal Laugier (Martyrs) this: It throws […]
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Sitting Target
Oh, and she’s preggo. It’s not his. That revelation causes Harry to bust through the glass that separates them so he can get his paws around her neck. It’s an indication that this not-so-ordinary crime tale intends to do the same to audiences. In its day, I’m sure it did, being the first British film […]
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Killer Joe
The second collaboration between director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) and Tulsa-born playwright Tracy Letts — their first being 2006’s Bug — this work serves up trailer-trash noir as savage as it is savagely funny. Not that all audiences will get the joke. Letts’ first play rolls around in the muck, and Friedkin […]