MOVIE REVIEW . Oldboy

Is this really happening? Like an old memory based in both surreal and logical demise, Oldboy reminds us of how unrealistic and unreliable reality can be. Held for fifteen years in a secret “holding cell hotel” by an anonymous kidnapper, main character Daesu Oh must (Shiri’s Min-sik Choi) sift through his old [...]

Set Up movie review

This Set Up is missing the instructions
I remember talking to a friend from Hong Kong a few years ago. I spoke to her about Chinese and Hong Kong cinema. She asked me, “Why do you watch Chinese films? They are garbage. Even I don’t watch my own country’s films.” I tried to reason with [...]

Red Eye movie review

Again Wes Craven dares to ask the unwanted question: if you remove all exploitative sex and gore from suspense horror, will you be left with an exciting suspense movie? Following in Scream’s successful footsteps, Craven decided to go light on the cussing and bloodying, shooting for PG-13, creating a thrilling popcorn flick sans [...]

The Skeleton Key movie review

In a summer of duds and remakes, ranging from The Fantastic Four to Willy Wonka, the The Skeleton Key provides a welcome change.
Kate Hudson plays a twenty-five year old nurse, Caroline Hudson, hired to care for a bedridden man on an old Louisiana plantation. Plagued by guilt stemming from her absence at her father’s [...]

Charisma (aka Karisuma) movie review

Restore the rules of the world… Freedom’s just another disease… A truly healthy human longs to obey… These [magic] mushrooms are delicious!

CAN’T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES? Kiyoshi Kurosawa became one of my favorite filmmakers rather quickly, although it has been a bumpy ride. I was enthralled by Cure, regrettably rushed through [...]

Taking Lives he-said-she-said movie review screener!

SHE SAID: This is weird. I thought that this movie was going to go all out crazy. I thought it was going to touch upon the paranormal profiling abilities of a renegade cop who was tracking down some guy from an X-Files episode who could miraculously transform himself into anyone he wished. Or at [...]

Secret Window movie review screener!

Secret Window is the latest effort from Hollywood’s scriptwriter turned director, David Koepp. The film itself is based on Stephen King’s short story reworking of the Dark Half, entitled Secret Window, Secret Garden. The fact that the stories are so similar only serves to further ground the story into extremely familiar territory. For a man [...]

Twisted he-said-she-said movie review screener!

HE SAID: Ashley Judd is fast becoming the queen of the pleasantly mediocre thriller. Just look at Kiss the Girls, Double Jeopardy, and Eye of the Beholder. While you never kick yourself for having seen one of these films, you don’t exactly recommend them to your friends. The same can be said about Twisted. [...]

Love Object he-said-she-said movie review

HOW ROMANTIC ARE YOU? We were lucky enough to be able to catch one of the midnight Valentines Day screenings of Love Object at San Francisco’s Independent Film Festival.
HE-SAID: Inspired by the cadaverous “beauties” of RealDoll.com, Love Object is the story of Kenneth (Desmond Harrington), a socially inept technical writer who falls head over [...]

The Order he-said-she-said movie review

Happy New Year! We’d thought we’d throw ya a curve ball with this unassuming flick. It’s appropriate, as Resolutions stand to “eat” our Sins, right? Anyhoo, enjoy!
SHE SAID:Trailers suck. Suck ass. Especially when they try to blast a decent film into blockbuster status, perhaps forcing the interesting bits to drown on the cutting room [...]

Dead or Alive 3: Final movie review

The last film in Miike’s Dead or Alive trilogy brings the series around full circle. For their final incarnation Sho Aikawa’s and Riki Takeuchi’s characters are each other’s nemeses once again, only this time they have switched roles of outlaw and lawman; cyborg and Blade Runner, respectively. The film takes place in Yokohama 2346. Japan [...]

Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha movie review

THE NAKED CHICK’S CORPSE HIT THE PAVEMENT LIKE A COLOSTOMY BAG FILLED WITH CHEESE Like Lynch, Miike’s films demand to be watched at least twice. Once for the purely visceral impact, and once to pick up on the symbolism and subtle nuances of the story. But if Lynch is Jazz, Miike is pure rock [...]

Matrix Revolutions he-said-she-said movie review screener!

NICE GUYS FINISH LAST
HE SAID: Well, it’s finally here. The Matrix Revolutions. The title in and of itself refers to the circuitous nature of the matrix, as well as bringing things around full circle to a satisfying closure. The film does this fairly well, though it ignores, and outright dismisses, many of the amazingly [...]

Das Experiment movie review

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?! You may have heard the story before but I’ll summarize it here to the best of my non-spoiltastic ability. Das Experiment is based on the infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment performed by Philip Zimbardo (If you’ve ever taken any psych classes you’ll recognize this name.) I always thought he looked [...]

Cold Creek Manor movie review screener!

DENNIS QUAID WILL FIRE HIS AGENT
SHE SAID: Slooooooooooow.. and not in a good ‘le French Cinema’ way. Camerawork likened to a kid messing around with the ‘slow motion/skip frame’ button. Editing is plain, redundant and predictable. Same goes for the musical score. So many opportunities to create intriguing tangents, but chooses the unforgivable [...]

Identity dvd movie review

Identity is the story of ten people who get caught up in a desert storm, and are forced to seek shelter at a roadside hotel until the storm passes. As the night progresses the people get knocked off one by one. In typical Agatha Christie fashion you have absolutely no idea who the killer [...]

The Last Minute dvd movie review

CHRIS LOVES EVERY SECOND OF “THE LAST MINUTE” Life is finite. You have a set amount of days, hours, minutes, and seconds that you’re spending every moment you’re on the face of this earth. The clock is counting down and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. It doesn’t help that you [...]

Butterfly Effect he-said-she-said movie review screener!

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES
SHE-SAID: What if every time you blundered or struggled, you could turn back time– no wait, wait a minute. That’s too corny. What if every negative moment your subconscious chose to suppress was merely an ephemeral escape into what deserved to be destiny? What if this said destiny altered the lives [...]