The Official Review Thread of 2006

[Sabin]

Another straight to DVD (or close enough to it) is Bobcat Goldthwait's 'Sleeping Dogs Lie' which achieved nominal notoriety for being the movie where a beautiful gal, wholesome beyond all belief...for no good reason...blew her dog when she was in college. She certainly did. Sucked him dry. The question: when faced with the prospect of being open and honest with her fiance some seven years later, when prodded to reveal her darkest secret to him, should she be honest or lie?

Well, she tells him and everything goes to shit but not in a monotonous fashion. It's not just her fiance who finds out. It's everybody in her family too. She becomes a "dog-blowing cunt", which is incidentally the parting shot in a moribund engagement. Honestly? For two-thirds of its running time, 'Sleeping Dogs Lie' is an interesting enough romantic comedy to justify its cinematic ineptitude. Goldthwait doesn't know a goddamn thing about making movies and this thing is ugly. Looks ugly, sounds ugly, pretty sure the audio isn't properly synched up. I would give the film the benefit of the doubt as it's clearly personal and ventures into unknown territory and dares to say that lies are as important in relationships as the truth. Unfortunately, it jumps the shark in a very big way in the final act as it begins to take itself far too seriously just as Melinda Page Hamilton's Amy is threated to become the aw shucks! Joan of Arc of bestiality.

Performances middling all around save for Melinda Page Hamilton who is absolutely fantastic. A hilarious crier as well (don't know what that says about how I was raised, but I love a funny crier in my women). One of the best single scenes of acting I've seen in some time (that the film is amateur hour really only strengthens her resolve) is when she finally gets the strength to tell her fiance in the backseat of her family's car about her canine tryst, finally gets the courage to laugh about the thing...and does she laugh! Then his smile fades and the horror and reflux in her eyes as she backpeddles. Just a breakthrough. The film is unworthy but not without merit. With a director, a budget, a cast, a cameraman, a camera, a sound mixer, catering, a co-writer, a musician, a gaffer, a dolly grip crew...let's see...basically if the script got a massive overhaul and all but Melinda Page Hamilton was given the heave-ho, I think we're looking at a great film. Not sayin' much, huh.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1244996709

[Big Magilla]

Come Early Morning is not a straight-to-DVD release. It was given a limited release last November but never made it out of the major cities. I reviewed it favorably in my DVD report of a few weeks ago.

[Sonic Youth]

I finally saw a non-dud 2006 film, and wouldn't you know it? It was a straight-to-DVD release. Come Early Morning is a very small-scale romantic drama set in a small, soporific town in Arkansas starring Ashley Judd (back to her roots) as a hard-drinking, committment-avoding woman who is slowly realizing that the years are catching up. It's written and directed by Kevin Smith regular, Joey Lauren Adams, the Chasing Amy co-star. It received decent reviews at Sundance two years ago. The Weinstein's picked it up, sat on it for a bit, then demoted it to DVD. And you would never buy it because the cover looks like this. Stigma upon stigma.

The Weinstein's may have been right that this modest trifle would have done no business. But they could have given it a chance. It's a wistful, melancholy little film. A diversion rather than a work of art? Sure, but a very worthwhile diversion, and sometimes very lovely. Rent it, and send the Weinstein's a message: Adams deserves to make another film.

[Sonic Youth]

The Curse of the Golden Flower

Now I remember why I quit dropping acid.

[anonymous1980]

THE QUEEN
Cast: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms.
Dir: Stephen Frears

Fascinating and competently though not exactly a landmark or a masterpiece, The Queen because of two great performances: One of course is Helen Mirren who richly deserved all the awards she's won for the role and Michael Sheen, criminally underrated as Tony Blair.

Grade: B

[anonymous1980]

SHORTBUS
Cast: Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy, Sook-Yin Lee, Lindsay Beamish, Jay Brannan, Raphael Barker, Bitch, Justin Bond, Shanti Carson, Stephen Kent Jusick, Yolanda Ross, Daniela Sea, Rachel C. Smith, Peter Stickles.
Dir: John Cameron Mitchell

There are a lot of interesting things in this film (apart from the actual scenes of sex) but it just didn't quite gel and come off as a bit detached and rather uneven. The soundtrack's great and John Cameron Mitchell's talent as a filmmaker still shines through but this is no Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Grade: B-

[Sonic Youth]

For all the breathless talk (until it opened, that is) about Soderbergh's uncanny simulation of a 40s b/w Hollywood studio film with "The Good German", how come no one pointed out Soderbergh's "Bubble" is a uncanny simulation of a no-budget Sundance festival film? Because a). that would mean someone actually saw the film, and b). that same someone would have to rouse enough motivation to find something to say about it.

What was much chattered about, though, was the release strategy. I remember all the hooplah about how Bubble was going to be released in the theaters, on DVD, and broadcast on cable simultaneously. I don't exactly recall what the rationale was. I can't imagine this benefitting the movie industry at all, unless the intention is for all films (other than the biggest blockbusters) to be specifically made with the small screen in mind. But the reality was less radical. Bubble was only shown in a smattering of theaters in probably no more than ten states, and I haven't heard of another movie given this sort of release pattern, even though there was a production company designed to put out more films this way. We can blame the failure of this experiment on distributors or theater managers who have their eye on the bottom line; we can blame it on the impovershed imagination of the American movie-going public. Fact is, had this been given a nation-wide release, no one would go see it. Not even if there weren't a DVD that people could Netflix for free.

Like your typical Sundance flick, "Bubble" is shot on location in a small, non-descript town with non-professional actors, and the theme is how stifling said town is. It's shot like a Dogma film minus the camera-tremors. The exteriors are uninspiring and the interiors are airless, appropriately enough for both. The theme, of course, is how poor American towns wring the souls out of its inhabitants until they're shells of themselves, much like the dolls they manufacture at the factory. Not exactly new, and there's nothing exactly fresh about Soderbergh's approach, although had the film been dubbed in an eastern European language, it would have fooled me. But Soderbergh obviously didn't make "Bubble" in order to make a statement. He had an experiment in mind, that's all, and I guess he thought something profound would arise out of his no-compromises method. I did like the unpretentiousness of the cast, but otherwise I suspect the film Soderbergh had in his head and the one he made don't correlate with each other. And even if it did, I don't know why we're supposed to be interested in such trifling experiements.

[ITALIANO]

Yes, I know

[Sabin]

Italiano, did you read the rest of my message? I said that you made interesting points re: 'Pan's Labyrinth' which I myself chimed in on agreement with.

You know I loves ya, baby.

[Penelope]

if you have to hate somebody, hate Italiano for getting it started.

As if I weren't hated enough..! It seems that it's very difficult for some of you to live without "hate"...

Let's not hate anybody here. Hilary Swank excepted, of course, which goes without saying.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1244996726

[ITALIANO]

if you have to hate somebody, hate Italiano for getting it started.

As if I weren't hated enough..! It seems that it's very difficult for some of you to live without "hate"...

[Damien]

You ever get the feeling criddic's exposure to American history has mostly been through Young Adult biographies ("Teddy Roosevelt: Hero of San Juan Hill!")? Most of us have moved on to the grown-up version, where even the best leaders have to navigate swamps of self-interest, and even the best countries do ghastly things.

It's of course possible criddic will be open to this view when someone from the other team (i.e., a Democrat) is in charge.

One of the funniest posts ever.

[Sabin]

Just stop, Cam.

I've come to realize that Criddic is just part of our community. No if's, and's, or but's about it. Don't hate him for proselytizing when it began with an interesting through line about 'Pan's Labyrinth'. It's progressed fairly organically and if you have to hate somebody, hate Italiano for getting it started. However, I'll say that his points were certainly entertaining. This shit's just going to go anywhere. There's no point in pigeonholing Criddic for just saying what he feels. What, he's going to all of a sudden do something else?

[99-1100896887]

I can't believe it. This criddic person has effectively baited us to the point where his political views are featured on two posts, now that he has shown up here. Has no one other than me--and he won't talk to me(why?)-- asked him why he hasn't gone somewhere else to proselytize.

[criddic3]

This is an old argument, and not a very good one. Oil is not the idea behind the War on Terrorism. People who make this argument are people who believe that there is no terror threat, as if 9/11 never happened. As if we could close our eyes for a few minutes and open them to safety and relative peace. These are people who still believe that the 1990's were a time of prosperity, when the truth is that it was a time for plotting and seemingly unrelated attacks on our interests. Reinventing history is what these people do. The purpose seems to be to lull people into a sense of false security long enough to make their political fortunes rise in the wake of an unpopular war. This has been far more successful than it should be. Politically it is a terrific conceit. Convince everyone that sinister American government officials made up a reason to go to war with Iraq under the pretense of a war against terrorism, but really to get oil-rich lands and oust thorn-in-the-side enemy. Sounds great, but the truth is that terrorism does exist and this administration didn't create it. It didn't materialize out of nowhere.

The President's opposers in Congress know this, which is why most aren't willing to just pull the plug, but for political reasons they have to play it out as if there is no long-term threat or to pretend that whatever is there was only created by our fight in Iraq and not by radical Islamists who want to kill and gain power in the world.

__

Mister Tee, you are funny, but I have read many books about history. Mostly political history, but I know that America hasn't always been noble. The imperialist notions during the 1800s were rather a necessity, since the world at that time viewed that as a sign of a country's stregnth. We may not have become a world power without some of that.

I would say, however, that on the whole America has been a noble enterprise. We didn't keep the bulk of the lands we conquered long ago, and even then conquered usually referred to spoils of war.

Today's America is not like the Roman Empire. We are NOT claiming Iraq as our own and we are NOT claiming the oil as our own, though we certainly could have done both. The drawback to doing that in the 21st century is that wouldn't go over so well. I don't think, though, that America was ever eager to conquer the world. From the Revolution on, we wanted to prove ourselves with longevity and growth through diplomacy and then through stregnth (particularly in the two World Wars).

Maybe I'm naive, but I really don't think this has been about oil. I don't deny that the thought may have crossed their minds, but there were bigger issues that brought President Bush to his decision. And especially after what we all experienced on 9/11, I feel that he was thinking foremost about national security and the long fight against the fanatics who have said time and again that they want us to covert to Islam or die. You can't tell me that isn't their mission. I saw the videos, I've heard the message. This isn't parroting. It's the truth.