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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Batteries plus
If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. That’s the belief punk rock band Alkaline Trio has held steadfast in since forming in the mid-1990s, and nearly two decades later, it’s one that has paid dividends. While most of the outfit’s contemporaries have long since burnt out, Alkaline Trio is playing to the same devout fans […]
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Poolboy — Soda Kids
Guitarist Michael Loveland, bassist Sean Barker and drummer John Calvin are no strangers to the local scene, nor are they, apparently, strangers to good, old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll. The band’s debut EP, Soda Kids, clocks in at less than six minutes, with four capricious and impassioned tracks that mimic a bygone golden era of punk […]
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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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Que sera, Sera
Photo: Hilary Harris Famed label Sub Pop is best known for its roster of alternative rock acts, ranging from classic grunge acts like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney to new hipster favorites like Obits, Mogwai and Dum Dum Girls, so it’s strange to see a folk/country act in their roster. Sera Cahoone takes total pride in […]
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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 […]
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Breaking the Girls
Also drawing upon Single White Female and director Jamie Babbit’s own The Quiet, this frigid thriller stars Agnes Bruckner (now the poor man’s Abbie Cornish, after starring in Lifetime’s recent Anna Nicole Smith biopic) as Sara, a struggling college student by day and bartender by night. When she loses the gig of the latter, it […]