…when you love something, every time a bit of it goes, you lose a piece of yourself.
No matter how much lipstick you put on the pig, in the form of an accomplished, Oscar-winning star and an Oscar-nominated director with art house credentials, The Brave One remains an exploitation movie at its heart. (more…)
I’m here trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime, and I ain’t even got a cent man.
I’m either too old, too white or just too dumb to get it, but I’m never been able to wrap my brain around the use of the word “pimp” as a synonym for making something stylish in a flashy way. How did our culture take a word derived from the criminal exploitation of women and turn it into something that’s elevated to some sort of exalted pop status?
Promise me you won’t let nobody turn you into no cripple, you won’t become no charity case, and you’ll stand on your own two feet.
The most amazing thing about Jamie Foxx‘s performance in Ray is how when the real Ray Charles appears briefly on screen toward the end of the movie, there is no jarring disconnect with the rest of the picture. Foxx has Charles’s vocal mannerisms down so perfectly that, when asked to lip-synch to the real performer’s recordings, it is seamless.
Well then I guess the big mystery is, who gathered all those remarkably different cultures together and taught them all how to park their cars on their lawns?
The team behind Paul Haggis‘ Crash said they were out to polarize people and, well, mission accomplished. This film made its share of both “ten best” and “ten worst” list for last year. You don’t divide critical opinion to that degree without swinging for the fences and, if Crash is not quite a home run, it definitely has warning track power.
Crash takes an Altman-esque look at the often bumpy interrelations between persons of different ethic backgrounds living in Los Angeles. Using a large, diverse cast, the film examines how they are all, in turn, victims of other people’s preconceived notions about their particular ethnicity and then turn around and, without thinking, inflict the same treatment on others.
If you keep knocking on the Devil’s door long enough, somebody’s gonna answer you.
It’s easier to get into the story logic of Four Brothers if you remind yourself that your watching a western transplanted to the urban streets of inner city Detroit, and that the original starred John Wayne. This 2005 John Singleton film is an update of 1965′s The Sons of Katie Elder.
