![]() | Revolutionary Road
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $2.49 (C-) Mendes retreads "American Beauty" territory, but w/o the humor and life that made that film work. The lead figures are dull and grating, and DiCaprio and Winslet both go overboard at times.
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![]() | Beowulf (Unrated Director's Cut)
Buy new: $16.49 / Used from: $1.02 (B-) Silly but entertaining action movie with a remarkable look. Winstone isn't entirely suited for the lead role, though.
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![]() | Man Push Cart
Buy new: $24.49 / Used from: $10.15 (B) Hyper-minimalist, neo-neorealist pic is surprisingly engrossing considering how little actually happens. The excess love some critics pour on it, howeve, reeks of racial/class condescension.
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![]() | Sorcerer
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $5.98 (B+) Cannot surpass the brilliant original, but Friedkin makes a very good, if redundant, film. Scheider is fine in the lead.
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![]() | Lost Horizon
Buy new: $16.49 / Used from: $7.36 (B-) Old-fashioned romance fantasy is capably made and entertaining, though it's never entirely comes to life.
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![]() | Four Sided Triangle
Buy used from: $5.44 (C) Bizarre early Hammer pic is wholly undistinguished, though reasonably painless to watch.
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![]() | Silent Running
Buy new: $11.49 / Used from: $7.20 (C+) Hippie sci-fi pic has some amusing old school effects and an unhinged performance from Dern, but not much ever happens. Has a couple of crappy Baez songs that assail the ears with hideous vibratto.
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![]() | Wise Blood
Buy new: $35.49 / Used from: $17.99 (B) O'Connor adaptation is filled with her freakish characters, all of whom are brought to life by fine performances. Dourif is particularly excellent. Plot meanders a bit, but this is still an interesting film.
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![]() | The Mechanic
Buy new: $11.49 / Used from: $6.79 (B) Early Winner/Bronson film could use a little more action, but makes up for this with atypically strong characters and a reasonably intriguing plot. Definitely worth a watch for Bronson fans.
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![]() | Death Machine
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $1.61 (B-) Goofy Terminator/Robocop knockoff has some charming effects while not entirely lapsing into camp. Dourif over does it, though, even by his standards.
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![]() | The Iceman Cometh
Buy used from: $47.39 (B) HK action/comedy flick actually mixes the two well, which is rare. One of the better non-Woo flicks I've seen from the region.
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![]() | The International
Buy new: $15.99 / Used from: $1.80 (B-) Tykwer follows up the outrageously bizarre "Perfume" with this stylish but conventional thriller. Owen is typically intense, though Watts seems a bit lost.
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![]() | The Island
Buy new: $10.49 / Used from: $1.20 (B-) Well, it's a lot better than "Pearl Harbor" or "Armageddon." Seems pieced together from every 70s sci-fi film, with some action tossed in. Entertaining enough, though the humor always falls flat.
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![]() | Valkyrie (Single-Disc Edition)
Buy new: $15.99 / Used from: $3.85 (B-) Another competently made but rather bloodless thriller. It passes the time well enough.
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![]() | Chopping Mall
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $7.90 (B) Sci-fi slasher has adorable killer robots and is quick paced. A fun watch.
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![]() | Bad Moon
Buy new: $5.79 / Used from: $4.04 (C) Generic werewolf film makes no impression whatsoever.
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![]() | Anatomy
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $0.83 (B-) German thriller is prehaps no different from the standard American thriller, but it has good setpieces and is always intriguing, if a tad contrived.
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![]() | Graveyard Shift
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $1.99 (C) Perhaps the most reviled King adaptation, but this has plenty of camp value. It's certainly not good, though.
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![]() | End of the Line
Buy new: $22.49 / Used from: $9.94 (C+) Cheapo horror flick is atypically clever in some respects, but the seams show too often.
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![]() | The Trap
Buy new: $22.49 / Used from: $7.48 (A) Fantastically tense, emotionally powerful Serbian neo-noir. This deserves a cult following.
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![]() | Antibodies (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Buy new: $20.49 / Used from: $17.78 (B-) German take on the standard issues serial killer thriller is atpyically bleak and intriguing initially, but this just makes the somewhat contrived final acts more detrimental.
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![]() | Heavenly Creatures
Buy new: $8.49 / Used from: $3.58 (D+) Might've worked as a dark thriller, but it's half farce and filled with brainless anti-authoritarianism. The film says crazy teens are victims of society, when they're actually dangerous lunatics. The performances are obnoxious, shrill and/or mannered, and the fine visuals are wasted.
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![]() | Isolation
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $2.61 (B-) I more or less assumed this would be a horror comedy, but it turns out this is a very serious minded horror film that happens to involve mutant cows. Effectively grimy, though a bit slow.
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![]() | The Reader
Buy new: $19.95 / Used from: $6.39 (D+) Tedious and shamless Oscar bait. German accents are impossible to take seriously cinematically, which does not help.
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![]() | Johnny Got His Gun
Buy new: $17.49 / Used from: $10.53 (B-) Quite bleak and affecting at times, but Trumbo has little control over the tone, with plenty of weird, ill-advised scenes. It's more good than bad, though.
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![]() | The Accidental Tourist
Buy new: $5.79 / Used from: $5.03 (B-)Not really my bag, but Hurt is good enough that he brings interest even to a, gulp, romantic drama.
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![]() | The Lives of Others
Buy new: $14.94 / Used from: $4.15 (A-) Slow but engrossing drama about artists and the secret police in East Germany. The ending is perhaps improbably sentimental, but it worked for me.
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![]() | H.H. Holmes - America's First Serial Killer
Buy new: $22.49 / Used from: $18.65 (B-) A fairly interesting look at one of the more bizarre killers around. Too bad it couldn't have been longer and in more depth.
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![]() | Captivity (Unrated Widescreen Edition)
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $1.19 (F) Ridiculous, hilariously bad butchered thriller transformed into a Saw-clone. Strikingly, stunningly bad. Wouldn't have thought looking at Cuthbert for 85 minutes could be so tedious.
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![]() | Tintorera
Buy used from: $7.38 (C-) Baffling Mexican Jaws knockoff that consists primarily of travelogue footage, spear-fishing and a swinger love triangle story. Way too long, and with all the nudity, S. George remains covered. Boo!
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![]() | Tokyo Gore Police
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $9.76 (B) Horror comedy is pure pastiche, combining Kitamura, Tsukamoto, Raimi, Cronenberg and more. It's good, though the gore is too over the top and it could be tighter.
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![]() | The Hit
Buy new: $27.49 / Used from: $13.60 (B) Oddly philosophica, slow moving Brit gangster pic. Strong performances all around.
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![]() | Silent Night, Deadly Night
Buy used from: $28.99 (C) Notorious film is, of course, entirely mediocre and undistinguished in the glut of slashers. Passes the time okay, though, as do most slashers.
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![]() | Tokyo Zombie
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $6.40 (B) Another surrealist Japanese horror comedy pieced together from inexplicable, contradictory parts. It's quite entertaining, though.
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![]() | The Machine Girl
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $6.57 (B-) See above, but not quite as entertaining. The gore is too stupidly over the top again.
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![]() | My Dinner with Andre (Criterion Collection)
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $22.00 (C+) An all talk movie isn't a terrible idea, but having one of the characters be an insufferable new age twit doesn't help. It's fun watching Shawn smack Andre down a bit, but Andre's ramblings drag at times.
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![]() | La Moustache
Buy new: $26.99 / Used from: $5.97 (B-) Bizarre drama about a man who shaves off his mustache, but nobody notices and, when pushed, denies he ever had one. This amusingly Twilight Zone like concept isn't really taken anywhere, but it's short enough to work okay, even if it's more of a short film setup.
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