All articles by Brent Simon – Page 10
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Reviews
The Last House On The Left
Dir: Dennis Iliadis. US. 2009. 110 mins. A commercially-streamlined remake of Wes Craven's nasty, low-budget 1972 horror, The Last House on the Left can't decide whether it wants to play it straight and grim, or dash headlong into over-the-top cathartic vigilantism. While director Dennis Iliadis has no trouble capturing depravity, ...
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Reviews
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
Dir: PJ Hogan. US. 2009. 104mins.Fashion magnate Coco Chanel once declared that luxury is the opposite of vulgarity but in the current economic climate such conspicuous consumption can seem somewhat tacky, or even a sign of mental psychosis, especially when a character opines, 'No man will ever treat you as ...
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Reviews
Nothing Like The Holidays
Dir: Alfredo de Villa. US. 2008. 98 mins.A celluloid mirror is held up to many December family gatherings in Nothing Like the Holidays, a lively, well-cast dramedy which captures both the exasperation and joy in being cooped up with blood relatives who remain outside of driving distance for the rest ...
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Reviews
Punisher: War Zone
Dir: Lexi Alexander. US. 2008. 103 mins.A blithely depraved shoot-'em-up in which its glum protagonist lays waste to a vast criminal underworld, Punisher: War Zone recalls low-budget action movies of the 1980s in which dialogue was only something to fill three to five minutes between set pieces. Steeped in as ...
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Reviews
Role Models
Dir: David Wain. US. 2008. 99 mins.A superbly-cast comedy, Role Models manages to locate and till fresh ground in the ascendant guys-behaving-badly sub-genre of American studio comedies. Both Paul Rudd (Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and Seann William Scott (the American Pie films) are best known as ensemble comedic ...
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Reviews
Passengers
Dir: Rodrigo Garcia. US. 2008. 93 mins.A handful of eerily-staged scenes and a surfeit of passably evocative production design can't save the otherwise muddled Passengers, in which Anne Hathaway stars as a grief counsellor assigned to help survivors of a fiery plane clash. In trying to tick a wide variety ...
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Reviews
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Dir: Kenny Ortega. US. 2008. 109 mins.Testing the maxim that happiness can't be contrived, High School Musical 3: Senior Year sets off a joy bomb, and attempts to charm tween audiences through an explosion of primary colours, bright production design and sheer, indefatigable force of will. The first film in ...
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Reviews
Quarantine
Dir: John Eric Dowdle. US. 2008. 89 mins.A remake of the 2007 Spanish cult hit [Rec], Quarantine is a passably-engaging claustrophobic horror told entirely via hand-held footage shot by one of its characters (a la Cloverfield or Blair Witch). The story - about a television reporter who accompanies a group ...