Nina Forever is about a morbid oddball-couple, which, if you’ve seen Corpse Bride, Let the Right One In, or Only Lovers Left Alive, will sound like familiar territory. Though this British movie (which is being sold as a horror-comedy, but that strikes me as stretching definitions of horror and comedy) barely digs beneath its surface, […]
Mark Palermo
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Fast Times at Grizzly Lake High
I’m filling in as Cinderhella I’m wearing the costume of an arch-slasher-movie villain come to life—one of several of my Where’s Waldo cameos in the film I co-wrote, Detention. But the botched surgery mask is hot enough to toast marshmallows, it’s incredibly difficult to see through. We’re shooting the movie’s prologue, where Cinderhella slaughters teen-tantrum […]
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Everyone’s a critic
The summer movie season is over, and though critics hated The Smurfs and Transformers, they were big hits. In response, Team Coast sounds off on movies they love that (almost) no one else does. Ishtar It’s telling that four of the five movies on this list are comedies; what’s funny is the most subjective thing. […]
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I Am Number Four lacks character
The cash-potential of a gender-neutral Twilight at least explains the incentive to make I Am Number Four. It will help if its audience of boys and girls doesn’t ask questions. John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) has the kind of history that should make him more interesting than the name he’s given. An alien from planet Lorien, […]
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Critics’ Picks 2010: DVDs
Apocalypse Now (Three-Disc Full Disclosure Edition) (Lionsgate) It occurs to me that I’ve owned more versions of Apocalypse Now, on more video formats, than any other movie. As this Blu-ray includes both the original masterpiece, Apocalypse Now Redux, and George Hickenlooper’s Hearts of Darkness documentary, it will hopefully be the last. –MP Cabin Fever 2: […]
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Confused Conviction
Hillary Swank is the perfect star to play underdog crusaders of justice. Her blend of country-bred virtue and cutting intelligence is recognized by Conviction, but the movie is too constrained to give into needed dramatic payoffs. Recounting the true story of Betty Anne Waters—a Massachusetts mother who goes through law school in hope of exonerating […]
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Sawing your face off—in 3D
By this point, it’s hard to be too outraged by the Saw franchise. The fans have been whittled down to the absolutely devout, who face an uphill battle trying to defend this stuff. Saw 3D (part seven=three + the fourth letter in the alphabet) opens with a pre-title scene of a man cauterizing his freshly […]
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Inception’s storytelling is still in dreamworld
Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are Warriors of the Subconscious in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Secret agent Cobb (DiCaprio) enters peoples’ dreams to steal knowledge and ideas. He’s then hired to try something considered impossible—implanting an idea (and one that can change the world). Regarded even before its release as the saving grace of […]
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Total Eclipse of the heart
Hand this much to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, it delivers the user-friendly blockbuster that New Moon fumbled. The problem is the first Twilight was about emerging teenage female hormones and self-understanding. It didn’t care about appeasing its viewers’ boyfriends. By broadening the appeal, Twilight loses its focus. And with it, its relevance. “You can love […]
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Killers attacks with a dull blade
The True Lies premise of Secret Agent Husband revealing his professional killer side rears its head again. Using James Cameron’s ’90s director of photography Russell Carpenter, Killers at least bests recent rom-coms She’s Out of My League, Miss March and The Proposal in that its stars are attractively lit. But how trite does a movie […]
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Prince of Persia fails the sands of time
Some market research idea of fun, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time turns a likable 2003 video game into a whole movie of Jake Gyllenhaal jumping off rooftops and rocks. Its story rhythms are as uncompelling as a Michael Bay film (it’s most easily consumed in two-minute intervals). And without Bay’s eye for postcard […]
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MacGruber embarrasses itself
A hit-and-miss action spoof (the misses often landing harder than the hits), MacGruber is reasonably successful largely due to the exertion of star Will Forte. Doing anything for a laugh—the character MacGruber’s standard numbers are getting naked in public areas, grunting scarily during sex, carrying celery in his ass and hallucinating that he’s copulating with […]