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Star Trek Into Darkness 2013
Shit blows up. It's fun. Really didactic about its sporadic political points, but so was the original show.
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Teen Witch 1989
This is how the conversation went:
Them: "Hey Chip. Wanna come over and watch Mad Men?"
Me: "Sure!" ::drives over, opens first beer::
::Movie starts, it's Teen Witch::
Me; "Um ... what's happening?"
Them: "Oh, some of us aren't caught up on Mad Men so we're watching Teen Witch instead."
Me: ::opens second, third, and fourth beers:: -
The Great Gatsby 2013
I have a lot to say about the approach to this movie and Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor in general and the nature of the story. But like the movie, it doesn't add up to anything really. The movie was pretty though.
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From Up on Poppy Hill 2013
This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini 1966
Holy shit. This movie is terrible. So, so terrible. I-couldn't-look-away-terrible.
The movie begins with a lady ghost who awakens Boris Karloff from this tomb. She explains to him that he's dead and that if he wants to get into Heaven, he has to do one good deed in the next twenty-four hours. The good deed he chooses: making sure the right people get the money from his vast estate. He's incredibly noble like that. Unfortunately, Karloff can't leave his tomb.…
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Purple Noon 1960
This movie made me want to rewatch The Talented Mr. Ripley.
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The Sting 1973
I've never been a big fan of this movie - or con artist movies in general. I'm too aware that they're always trying to fool the audience with one last twist. I'm always doubting what I see - assuming that I can't trust any of the characters. These movies all let the audience in on a secret, then spins it so that there was one more -or two or three more - secrets that the audience didn't know about, and…
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Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back 1980
Even though I'll give the entire original trilogy five stars, this movie is so much more astounding than the other two. The leap in quality from Star Wars to Empire is incredible.
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Iron Man 3 2013
I like the trend of having smarmy writer/directors taking the reigns of the Marvel movies. Who's next? Martin McDonough? Quentin Tarantino? Charlie Kaufman? This is by far the Shane Blackiest super hero movie you'll ever see. There's a stammering narration. It takes place at Christmas. Characters call each other out on their motivations constantly. Tonally, it feels pretty different from the first two Iron Man movies. But you know what? Fuck the first two Iron Man movies. This is the…
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Things to Come 1936
Quaint vision of the future with some hammy acting, but powerful visuals. The movie is strongest in the beginning. Predating WWII by only a few years, the movie makes some startling predictions that came to pass. But as the movie reaches further into the future, it becomes increasingly silly. I mean from the vantage point of 2013, it's funny to see that the filmmakers imagined 2036 as an underground world full of futuristic sets and man skirts. A world where…
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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 1970
I first saw this in a theater years ago. I added it to my outrageously long queue with the intention of watching it again to make sense out of it. Since then, I saw Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural. I remember thinking how Lemora reminded me of Valerie - but pulpier, trashier, more tasteless. Now that Valerie has finally come back up in my queue and I've rewatched it, it struck me even more how similar these two…
