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March 30, 2007
Meet the Robinsons
(out of four)
Meet the Robinsons introduces an ensemble the likes of which only the late Robert Altman could manage. Not counting the singing frogs or time-traveling T. rex, the Robinson house crams 17 eccentric personalities under one roof (technically, two of them, twin uncles, actually live in giant flower pots outside the front door).
For little orphan Lewis, that's heaven -- the lonely boy inventor wants nothing more than a family of his own, which is exactly what he gets when a kid in a time machine shows up at his science fair and whisks him to the future. For the audience, it's an acute form of torture, with all 17 family members constantly competing for their fair share of screen time.
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2007
Shooter
(out of four)
As his name would suggest, Bob "the Nailer" Swagger is the type of expert marksman who lives by the mantra, shoot first, ask questions later. Dubbed Shooter for the screen, Swagger's first explosive adventure leaves you wanting to get right back on and ride again.
The thriller is based on film critic Stephen Hunter's Point of Impact, a novel no doubt drawn from sitting through and distilling countless action movies. It's inherently cinematic material, featuring a franchise-ready new hero, and Mark Wahlberg's the right man for the job.
Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
The Last Mimzy
(out of four)
What exactly is a "Mimzy"? For the average adult, watching the E.T.-like sci-fi adventure The Last Mimzy isn't likely to clear up the mystery, although there's little doubt kids will understand (and love) the floppy-eared time traveler aimed directly at their eager young intellects.
Mimzies come from the future disguised as children's toys. They contain the power to unlock complex knowledge in the minds of special kids. Vacationing at their family beach house, Noah and Emma (newcomers Rhiannon Leigh Wryn and Chris O'Neil) happen upon a box filled with strange objects: ancient-looking rocks that spin in mid-air, a futuristic prism only they can see and a stuffed rabbit named "Mimzy."
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
Color Me Kubrick
(out of four)
John Malkovich doesn't look anything like Stanley Kubrick, but neither did Alan Conway. In the early '90s, Conway (born Eddie Alan Jablowsky) went around London posing as the reclusive Eyes Wide Shut director. The ruse earned him free drinks and favors from perfect strangers who seemed flattered to imagine themselves in the presence of one of the greatest living directors -- only they weren't in Kubrick's presence at all, but rather that of a predatory homosexual and compulsive alcoholic.
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2007
Performance
Say what you will about Premiere magazine, but I'll miss it. It was the first movie-mag subscription on which I invested my hard-earned allowance, and it introduced me to Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's Performance, a gangster movie that broke all the rules. When his name turns up on his employers' hit list, East End tough guy Chas (James Fox, then England's top movie star) shacks up with retired rocker Turner (Mick Jagger, making his acting debut), their identities slowly bleeding together. Think Bergman's Persona on sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Performance caught my attention in the magazine's "100 Most Daring Movies" roundup (October '98). Visit Premiere today in its now-online-only form, and you'll find a new list, "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies," full of predictable entries: Bonnie and Clyde, Boys Don't Cry and so on. Back in 1998, drunk on the idea of discovery, I went through that "Daring" list film by film, and the entries blew my mind, but none to quite the degree that Performance did. For my money, it is the most dangerous movie ever made.
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2007
Maxed Out
(out of four)
Maxed Out is perhaps the scariest "vampire" movie ever, primarily because every detail director James D. Scurlock uncovers is real. The bloodsuckers in Scurlock's documentary have names like Capital One and Citigroup; the victims are everyday Americans, who owe an average of $9,205 in credit card debt per household.
Debt is big business. Anyone who's ever paid the late fee on a credit card knows that. But did you know that lending organizations target the Americans least likely to repay their debts? People who've been through bankruptcy make some of the best customers, explains Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren (one of the movie's many talking heads), because they already have "a taste for credit" and can't declare bankruptcy again. Collecting interest and overdue fees is precisely how these companies make their profits.
Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2007
Gray Matters
(out of four)
For all of 10 minutes, Gray Matters looks like it might have accomplished the impossible: uncovering a romantic-comedy scenario audiences haven't seen a million times before. Sam (Tom Cavanagh) and Gray (Heather Graham) are the perfect couple. They ballroom dance like pros, love old movies and ditch their friends to cuddle up on the couch and watch a DVD. There's just one tiny problem: They're siblings. Ick, right? But you gotta admit, it's original.
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)