The hermetically sealed theocracy-meets-Stalinist dictatorship of North Korea does not allow foreign reporters or filmmakers onto their territory. The state’s quasi-racist ideology shuns them – they might taint Korean purity. So, aside from the Chinese and Russian workers who necessarily do cross-border business, or the odd tourist from harmless countries like Switzerland, there are not [...]
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Tagged concentration camp, documentary, First Person, gulag, holocaust, Kim Jong-Il, Kimjongilia, N. C. Heikin, North Korea, Pyongyang, refugee, refugees, Solzhenitsyn Would Be Proud, traffic police, Transcendent Man, Unsolved Mysteries
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By popular demand I am reposting my original review/rant on Transformers 2, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. This piece was originally published on my other blog, which is dead now, so technically it sort of qualifies as new material. Right? Sure, anyway, this was originally written July 2, 2009 immediately after [...]
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Tagged Autobots, breasts, cocaine, Decepticons, existential crisis, explosions, Guy Debord, media saturation, Megan Fox, menergy, Michael Bay, nihilism, Optimus Prime, plotholes, postmodernism, Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers 2, uncanny valley, wtf
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
End of the year, or in this case, end of the decade lists are, by their nature, as protean as they are personal. If composed a month, or even a week from now, this same list might’ve seen a change in its order and even its content. There are several unavoidable evils that come along with [...]
Like “Juno” and “Thank You for Smoking” before it, Jason Reitman’s third film “Up in the Air” is a light, surefooted comedy rooted in moments of genuine heart. Like Juno MacGuff and Nick Naylor before him, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), the film’s protagonist, lives a lonely and somewhat troubled existence before he’s able, by uniting [...]
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Tagged adaptations, american airlines, Clooney, danny mcbride, i type with purpose, jk simmons, juno, reitman, thank you for smoking, up in the air, vera farmiga, zach galifianakis
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Monday, November 30, 2009
“Honey, I’m seven non-fox years old,” Mr. Fox (George Clooney) tells his wife as the camera pushes in on them sitting down to breakfast, “My father died at seven-and-a-half. I don’t want to live in a hole anymore. And I’m gonna do something about it.” Then, after a pregnant pause, he [...]
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Tagged bill murray, fantastic mr fox, furry's wet dream, george clooney, jason schwartzman, like-existentialism, meryl streep, michael gambon, noah baumbach, roald dahl, stop-motion, the cuss you are, wes anderson, willem dafoe is unrecognizable as the rat
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Monday, November 23, 2009
As she stumbles, panting, through thick underbrush at the beginning of “New Moon,” Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) comes face to face with that which she fears most. No, she doesn’t encounter a villainous monster (series author Stephenie Meyer has defanged or declawed most of these); instead, she sees herself grow old. Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)―her [...]
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Tagged abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, bella swan, damp theatres, edward cullen, fanfic taken way too seriously, hurting yourself over a boy, inept filmmaking, killer abs, kristen stewart, new moon, pre-teen hive mind, robert pattinson, taylor lautner, twilight saga, Volturi
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Friday, November 20, 2009
Admin Note: In honor of the release of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and to whet your appetite for our forthcoming review, reprinted here is Kevin’s original review of “Twilight” from the UCR Highlander.
On atheism, the Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts wrote that “when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing [...]
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Tagged abstinence-only education totally works, bad female role models, bella swan, edward cullen, new moon, plot hole, softcore porn for tweens, stephanie meyer, trainwreck, travesty, twilight, weak female leads, ya'll
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Where to begin. “The Box” doesn’t really make any sense, the acting is inconsistent (with the notable exception of Frank Langella), the score is abominable and Richard Kelly doesn’t seem to understand how unintentionally funny some of the images he puts on the screen are. That being said, there’s a certain charm to such a [...]