Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 25th, 2005
I’m always a sucker for con men movies, movies about the grift, or general films about robbers who are smart and get money from dumb people. If they’re too stupid to know what to do with the cash, send it over here, Daddy needs it. Sometimes there are new and interesting wrinkles that usually crash and burn, but sometimes work out quite well in the end.
Matchstick Men tells the story of Roy (Nicolas Cage, Adaptation) and Frank (Sam Rockwell, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), two men wh... have been conning people for a few years, Roy being the veteran of the bunch, one who doesn’t like to take many big risks. Roy appears to suffer from various neuroses, and is a bit of an obsessive compulsive, who takes medication to help curb his tics. In the midst of a panic attack caused by a lack of pills, Frank sets Roy up with a psychiatrist who can prescribe the desired pills, but would still like to find out more about Roy’s life. In the midst of the discussions, Roy tells the psychiatrist that he had a daughter with an ex-wife who left him. The psychiatrist decides to make contact with her, and introduces Roy to his daughter Angela (Alison Lohman, Big Fish). Roy meets Angela and she stays with him for a short while, and they eventually develop a bond, so much so that he decides to show her some of the tricks of his trade. She finds herself involved in a job Roy and Frank are pulling to rob almost $100,000 cash from Chuck (Bruce McGill, The Sum of All Fears), leading up to a wild and wacky ending.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 25th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 20th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 20th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2005
The Matrix (1999) was a landmark film in the Sci-Fi genre. While it’s box office intake was dwarfed by Episode 1, it was The Matrix that had people talking. Andy and Larry Wachowski’s story of a post-apocalyptic world where humans serve as biological generators of energy for the machines that rule the planet, challenged people’s perceptions of what reality was.
In addition to the well crafted story, The Matrix was well known for the creation of one of the most copied special eff...cts shots currently in movie production, “bullet time” blew audiences away. The normally wooden acting of Keanu Reaves seemed to fit Neo’s transformation well and the performances by the supporting cast (Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Ann Moss) were visceral in their appeal. The Matrix was a box office success – the production budget was $63 million and the domestic gross was $171 million.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 16th, 2005
The barometer for those interested in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts is usually whether or not they liked Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. Hell, it’s the question I posed to my fiancée when we were trying to figure out what to watch over the Thanksgiving holiday. The comparisons are pretty conventional; both are large ensemble films with intertwined plotlines set in California, both have a 3 hour runtime. Both even have Julianne Moore in predominant roles.
Based on short stories by Raymond Carver...and written by Altman, many of the characters in Short Cuts are reprehensible turds, let’s face it. You’ve got the policeman/husband and father of three Gene (Tim Robbins, The Player), who frequently cheats on his wife Sherri (Madeline Stowe, Stakeout), and even drops off the family dog hundreds of miles from home because he barks too much at Gene. Gene pulls over women at traffic stops to get phone numbers, one of whom may have been Betty (Frances MacDormand, Fargo), who is separated from her pilot husband Stormy (Peter Gallagher, The OC). Jazz singer Tess (Annie Ross, Pump Up the Volume) frequently drinks and never provides any encouraging words to her daughter Zoe (Lori Singer, Footloose). Limo driver Earl (Tom Waits) is a drinker who frequently berates his wife Doreen (Lily Tomlin, Nashville).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 16th, 2005
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