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5 articles
[TV] Crime Wave: 18 Months of Mayhem
15 minutes ago
Suckers for profiler documentaries will find a decent production in Crime Wave: 18 Months of Mayhem. Not unlike the recent film Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp, Crime Wave suffers when it gets too bogged down in details of the various biographies; it loses sight of the overall story which has a compelling amount of information unto itself, making the moments where it dives too deep into the backstory of any one criminal a bit mundane. Perhaps the greatest aspect of the disc’s scope is that it covers both facets of the story: the criminals and the pursuit thereof; not only do Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde get a strong focus but the formation of the FBI plays an integral role in the telling of the story. From its humble beginnings as just another bureaucratic office with no real power to the upstart agency responsible for the felling of some of American history’s most notorious criminals, »
- Lex Walker
[DVD Review] My Sister's Keeper
12 hours ago
Nick Cassavetes likes plucking heartstrings and he’s not afraid to dig into your chest to do so. Unfortunately, the digging is sort of a laborious process and it can take Cassavetes an hour or two to even scratch the surface. Maybe you were swept away by his romantic tale of Alzheimers afflicted love in The Notebook? It did have a surprisingly strong cast (Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling and James Garner) and whether you like the movie or not, chances are your body either produces a healthy share of estrogen and you loved the film or your body doesn’t but someone from the first category insisted you watch it. Yet, he also directed Alpha Dog, so his tendencies towards emotionally manipulative clearly aren’t his only option. My Sister’s Keeper, however, plays directly into his manipulative side; if you’re a crier then you’ll get that cathartic »
- Lex Walker
[TV] Superman: The Complete Animated Series
14 hours ago
When Superman: The Animated Series debuted that bright childhood day, the first thing I remember thinking was “It’s not as cool as Batman.” Dropping the black paper background of Batman: The Animated Series in favor of a brighter and more traditional white, Superman was a cheerier series right from the outset. Whereas Batman only gave passing glances to the dark origin of Bruce Wayne’s caped crusader, Superman’s is embroiled in many of the plots for each episode. When it comes to DC iconography, the difference between the significance of the emblems on each hero’s chest becomes even more apparent in the animated series. Batman’s yellow and black bat logo became an instrument, a tool; Superman’s logo, however, the sign of his lineage, works its way into many of the show’s storylines. Whether it’s a villain looking for the last Kryptonian, a princess »
- Lex Walker
[DVD Review] Evergreen
16 hours ago
It's pretty widely known that teenagers are selfish and ungrateful little snots. Evergreen, a film from 2004 that only recently was released, drills this into the viewer's brain.
Henrietta, Henri, for short, played by the relatively unknown Addie Land, and her mother Kate, played by Cara Seymour (the chick who was demolished by Christian Bale's chainsaw in American Psycho) have fallen on hard times and have to move in with Cara's mother (Lynn Cohen), who lives in grubby leaky shack on the edge of town. Henri's mother is the type who goes out of her way to do everything she can for her daughter, to give her the things she didn't have when she was a kid.
On paper this sounds great, but, if you recall your time in high school, the greatest thing your folks could do for you was to just leave you alone. Cara just wants to »
- Jess Goodwin
[TV] Moonshot
18 hours ago
The format of the History Channel’s Moonshot is a strange one. Similar to their prior Manson, the film contains both authentic documentary footage (interviews in that film, and verite footage of actual events in this one) and fictionalized re-enactments, but unlike that film, this one has the distinct disadvantage of following in the footsteps of many, many well-produced films and television shows about Nasa in the 1960s, whereas nothing comparable had really been produced about Manson. That’s not always a liability (Lord knows they’ll always be enough room in national consciousness for another television movie about Hitler), but Moonshot turns it into one, taking too many cues from prior films to make its pseudo-documentary style feel like anything other than a cost saving gimmick.
Odds are good that if you went through an American high school at some point in the last forty years, you are at »
- Anders Nelson
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