| Critic |
Review |
Quote |
Analysis |
This Week's Verdict |
Manohla Dargis,
New York Times |
The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai |
"Although our plucky star spends much of her onscreen time undressed (not so her male partners), the film differs from pornography in one crucial respect: It doesn't seem to have been created for the usual instrumental purpose. Or maybe it's just me." |
Manohla Dargis describes the main character as "conjured up by a teenage boy in dangerous hormonal overdrive. As gently plumped as a freshly cooked hot dog." So there is a very real possibility that, yes it might just be you, Manohla.
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Stephanie Zacharek,
Salon.com |
Lonely Hearts |
"I laughed, but I wasn't sure I was supposed to. Hayek, with that old-time movie-star pout, those dark, reflective eyes (they could be Satan's twin swimming pools), is the shivery, chilling backbone of Lonely Hearts. Martha Beck couldn't get away with murder. But Salma Hayek can." |
Can't disagree with the fact that Salma Hayek could get away with murder and still be hot as hell. But something about describing her big dark eyes as "Satan's twin swimming pools" seems iffy. Or maybe it's just me. |
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Armond White,
The New York Press |
Master Perspective: Alain Resnais |
"Anyone impressed by the gimmicky thriller, Memento, was probably ignorant of Alain Resnais, the filmmaker whose innovations with film form and experiments with time were trivialized by Memento's flashback-in-reverse game. With such monumental 1960s films as Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad and Muriel, Resnais innovated the most confounding yet dazzling kinds of narrative." |
Us neophytes born after 1953 will never get to experience "that '60s heroic feeling." New movies are but pale, aesthetically and artistically corrupt imitations of whatever came out of that magnificent decade. For disillusioned veterans of those glory days there is only one way out of our present hell.
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Rob Nelson,
The Village Voice |
Year of the Dog |
"Speaking as the owner of a new puppy, I can say definitively that a dog is both more and less annoying than the average person. Year of the Dog makes much the same point with its pack of un-controllable pooches, including a cute beagle that rips into the wrong bag of treats and thereby makes an early widow of its master, Peggy (Molly Shannon), a hypersensitive animal-lover who can't easily manage the loss." |
Considering that most every other critic seems to feel the need to draw a massive line in the sand between themselves and Peggy the crazy dog lady, it is kind of refreshing that Rob Nelson goes ahead and puts his own dog love out there for the world to see. |
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Dana Stevens,
Slate |
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters |
"Writing about a cult object as impenetrable as Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (First Look Pictures), based on the Cartoon Network animated series, poses a dilemma. Do you go and rent six years' worth of the show, familiarize yourself with its coded mythology, and then embark on an earnest explanation of the Aqua Teen universe that accounts for the show's devoted underground audience? Nah, that's for suckers.." |
Word. Why swallow the bait and worry about the cultural import and possible subtext of a far-too-long movie about bratty, two-dimensional fast food items? Dana Stevens cuts to the chase and gives Aqua Teen Hunger Force a taste of its own medicine. |
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