(2008) dir. Oliver Blackburn
viewed: 04/28/09
Only a notch or so above loathsome, Donkey Punch is a British thriller about a bunch of hot-bodied twenty-somethings partying in Majorca, Spain, as young Brits are known to do. But on a yacht, amid ecstasy and crack and general orgy, one of the naive young men administers a “donkey punch” [...]
Archive of entries posted on April 2009
Donkey Punch
Fellini: I’m a Born Liar
(2002) dir. Damian Pettigrew
viewed: 04/27/09
I think I queued this film, a documentary about famed filmmaker Federico Fellini, to gain some perspective on his work, since I have felt somewhat unmoved by his films, also finding myself looking for a toehold to get into them. This documentary came out in 2002, and I remembered it (it’s [...]
Synecdoche, New York
(2008) dir. Charlie Kaufman
viewed: 04/26/09
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman came to be known as one of the most innovative and challenging screenwriters working in Hollywood since the first of his scripts was produced into Being John Malkovich (1999). Other films produced from his screenplays include Human Nature (2001), directed by Michel Gondry, Adaptation (2002), directed by Spike Jonze who had [...]
Clash of the Titans
(1981) dir. Desmond Davis
viewed: 04/24/09
The kids and I have watched a number of the films of Ray Harryhausen. In many ways, though Harryhausen only ever did the special effects (the stop-motion animated monsters and creatures), and while he worked with a number of different “directors”, those films are his more than anyone else’s, far more [...]
The Spirit
(2008) dir. Frank Miller
viewed: 04/18/09
Adapted from a greatly respected and appreciated, though perhaps out of hardcore comic book circles less known, comic by Will Eisner, The Spirit is the latest “old” comic book character to get resurrected. And in this case, he’s resurrected by writer/director Frank Miller, a comic book artist/writer turned Hollywood with his [...]
The Day the Earth Stood Still
(2008) dir. Scott Derrickson
viewed: 04/18/09
In re-making a classic film, which is happening more and more all the time these days, from an artistic standpoint, you start out partially screwed. You’re down a notch from originality and you’re down a notch because it’s rare that original films really have a need to be remade. So, you [...]
Sputnik Mania
(2007) dir. David Hoffman
viewed: 04/17/09
This is a pretty disappointing documentary about the effect that the launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite had on America and the world, spurring on both the Space Race and the Arms Race. It’s Cold War material, typically interesting to me, tying in with several other documentaries made about similar times [...]
Splinter
(2008) dir. Toby Wilkins
viewed: 04/14/09
In horror films since 28 Days Later… (2002) (and before to an extent), diseases have evolved into super-diseases, running rampant, taking ebola and rabies to new heights (also recently noted: Quarantine (2008)). Well, it makes sense, super diseases are scary and their effects of turning people into crazed zombie murderers have taken the genre through [...]
Le million
(1931) dir. René Clair
viewed: 04/13/09
I have often noted that no one has seen “all” of the important, interesting films, is familiar with “all” of the significant auteurs or directors, no matter how lonely and locked up with a VCR or DVD player they could be. But, as I am apparently aspiring to such a thing, [...]
Brute Force
(1947) dir. Jules Dassin
viewed: 04/12/09
Why it took me so long to discover director Jules Dassin, I’ll have to clock up to circumstance. But after seeing his influential caper film, Rififi (1955), I’ve queued up his other works, which actually had already been in my Netflix queue. I just queued them higher. I think I rented Brute [...]
