Thursday, December 11, 2008

Holiday Movies.

Posted by Mark on Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:45 PM

I am prouder of doing this picture on Photoshop than I am of graduating from an expensive east coast college, probably.

A hell of a lot of movies are opening this weekend, and we couldn't possibly cover them all in our pocket-sized magazine. But with the internet, all things are possible, so here are the L's critics on this clusterfucked awards-season weekend...


To start with, some stuff I'll be giving an extra push to before the week is out, and with which you ought to familiarize yourself: the lovely miniature Wendy and Lucy, now playing, and the gorgeous, sly weeklong Anthology run In the City of Sylvia. I'll also be talking up next week's revival of Paul Schrader's Mishima — reviewed by the L in concert with Schrader's nutty latest, Adam Resurrected, which opens today. Other underdogs include the mindfucker Timecrimes and the Indian panoramic Herbert.

Steven Soderbergh's two-part Che plays in a special roadshow version for one week only, at the Ziegfeld, which is really the only place to see an old-style roadshow epic (especially since Che's more successful second half subverts the form as reestablished in the first). Nicolas Rapold talked to Soderbergh.

Gran Torino: "There are apparently few greater pleasures than watching Clint Eastwood as a get-off-my-lawn Detroit retiree growl dated racial slurs to one and all in his sunny suburb."

Doubt: "Taking on the job of adapting his Pulitzer-Prize-winning play, Shanley barrels on through the production's variety of themes—including the evaluation of religion, morality, sexuality and certainty—with stern, stone-cold sobriety."

The Reader: "Wagging a tasty piece of celluloid in the face of Academy members, The Reader is scrupulously spoon-fed to you by the guys who shoved The Hours down your throat."

The Day the Earth Stood Still: "Though it stringently avoids any ecological specifics, The Day the Earth Stood Still manages to seem hypocritical. "You're going to have to change your profligate, polluting lifestyle!" the film blandly scolds, all the while representing the kind of costly, energy-devouring excess we as a species could easily do without."

Dark Streets: "Dark Streets is the cinematic equivalent of a Motel 6 that thinks it's the Plaza."

Where God Left His Shoes: "As miserable as the Christmas special of a Brit TV series and as bleak as a stocking full of coal..."

What Doesn't Kill You: "The South Boston crime story — dive bars and triple-deckers, guns, drugs, and Boston accents — is revisited here, and Goodman's understated rendering, based on events in his own life, transcends stereotype." (Hey, this one sounds pretty good...)

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Wait, were you the one who put Stephon in Palin's cleave?

Posted by Sharon on December 11, 2008 at 3:46 PM | Report this comment

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