From My Collection: Rounders Movie Review

I reviewed this film sixteen years ago in the Connecticut College Voice. It is far too embarrassing to republish the original so in revisiting the film, here is my new and updated reviews.

For a brief time in the 90s and early 2000s, director John Dahl was establishing himself (in my estimation, at least) as a maker of dark and fascinating tales of low moral character or the underbelly of places we thought we knew. In 1998 he brought us, via a screenplay by David Levien and Brian Koppelman, to the underground and illegal poker scene of New York City in Rounders. He showed us a seedy version of New York that stands outside the realm of most Hollywood movies. And it’s populated with a cast of characters, most of whom you wouldn’t be too quick to invite into your home.

From My Collection: Miller's Crossing

The extent to which I thoroughly enjoy and absolutely love Miller’s Crossing can hardly be put into words. It is by far my favorite Coen brothers film even if I don’t think it their greatest achievement. But I get a thrill every time I watch it, and that’s about ten or a dozen times over a period of nearly twenty years. I think Miller’s Crossing arrived on my radar at a particularly impressionable time in my development as a cinephile. It was pre-Fargo and so prior to the Coens being almost household names. I was also just very recently enamored with Quentin Tarantino, although had yet to discover Sam Raimi. I don’t even think I knew about the Coens as filmmakers yet. Raising Arizona had played on TV and I’d seen it, but I had no idea who was responsible. There was no IMDb in my world yet.

Classic Movie Review From My Collection: Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee’s first two feature films clearly established him as a filmmaker concerned with issues within the African American community (She’s Gotta Have It showed him also being particularly sensitive to feminist issues), but his third time at bat proved to be the magnum opus – the film that would tie together race relations on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn, a microcosm perhaps for the entire borough or even the whole city of New York. Do the Right Thing remains to this day one of his greatest accomplishments for the skill in direction and writing to bring together good entertainment value, social issues, sound filmmaking techniques, and a clearly delineated personal vision into one concise film.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Review

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is one of the great movie mysteries. It poses seemingly impossible conundrums and then refuses to solve them. Some of them include such questions as: Why is it called “Dark of the Moon?” What happened to the word “side?” Was it too long for the movie posters? Other riddles to behold are whether or not action screenwriters actually know what the word “triangulate” means and how can a screenplay so irreparably dumb know how to use “whom” correctly? Also, is there a book of action movie dialogue clichés from which Ehren Kruger took about 33 percent of the lines? Is it possible to release a Hollywood mega-budget film that isn’t overflowing with expository dialogue? Did director Michael Bay and his visual effects teams understand the action sequences? Did they actually try to make them coherent and fail miserably or is it just pure laziness. This movie is wondrous to behold. I’ve never seen its equal.

Cars 2 Movie Review

The rational person in me who understands business and money-making enterprises can grasp why Pixar decided that a sequel to Cars was necessary. But the movie critic, or more aptly, the fan of cinema in me wishes that studios wouldn’t continue to make sequels to undeserving films. The first was very high-grossing, but the worst reviewed of all their films, most of which rank among the best in Hollywood cinema (animated or not) of the last 15 years. Cars is the only Pixar film with under 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s the lowest scoring on Metacritic. But it grossed nearly $250 million domestic.