Author Archive
An Appreciation – Back to the Future
There are some films that have become so familiar to us that watching them again feels a bit like coming home. We know the characters, we know the sequences, and sometimes we can even say the lines of dialogue before they come. They are so…
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An Appreciation – Aguirre: The Wrath of God
The opening shot is as striking as any you’ll see. Up high in the Peruvian mountains, amongst the clouds and mist, a line of soldiers, animals, and workers snake their way down a steep path. While the shot is taken from a distance, it’s clear…
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Film Review – Pariah
Sometimes, the beauty of smaller or independent films is that they are populated by characters that feel more tangible than those of big Hollywood films. The achievement of Dee Rees’s film Pariah (2012) is through the believability of its main character. Adepero Oduye, who plays…
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Top 10 of 2011 – Allen’s Picks
With 2011 officially in the books, it’s time once again to look back and reflect on some of the best films that have come out in the past year. As with all movie writers, coming up with a list like this is usually expected, but…
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An Appreciation – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
No other genre evokes a sense of place better than the western. You have vast rolling hills, expansive barren deserts, horses, hats and pistols, and sleepy towns where sheriffs and robbers shoot it out to the death. It’s a world long since passed, where those…
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Film Review – The Adventures of Tintin
Now this is what I’m talking about. The beautiful thing about seeing Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin (2011) is realizing all the shortcomings that made up his lackluster film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Sure, both films have similarities:…
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