// Category Archive for: Movie Reviews

Fight For Death: Zardoz

By Less Lee Moore

“The gun is good but the penis is evil.”

Whenever John Boorman’s bizarre, rambling, dystopian epic Zardoz is discussed, this is the line that is always mentioned. This line and the image of Sean Connery sporting mutton chops, a braided ponytail, red bandoliers, thigh high pirate boots, and red, diaper-like underpants.

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A Sci-Fi Fairy Tale: Hanna

By Lisa Anderson

One of the best movies of the year has already arrived, without much fanfare. If you’ve gone to see a movie rated PG-13 or higher in the past few months, then you’ve seen the trailer for Hanna, where the thrumming score by the Chemical Brothers provides the background for a teenage girl’s acts of derring-do. What you can’t tell from the trailer is that Hanna is one of the most innovative science fiction movies to come along in a while.
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There Is No Alfred, Only Proteus: Demon Seed

By Less Lee Moore

Although technophobia has been around since the Industrial Revolution, the advent of computers in the 1960s and ’70s introduced a new level of fear into citizens of industrialized nations. Those under the age of 40 may scoff that anyone could possibly be afraid of a computer, but when they talk? That’s a different story.

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A Little Bowie, A Little Bardot: The Runaways

By Less Lee Moore

The Runaways, Floria Sigismondi’s 2010 film about the seminal all-girl rock band, is not a documentary. That role, to some extent, has already been filled: Former Runaway Vicki Tischler-Blue made Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways in 2004, even though Joan Jett declined to participate and refused to allow any original music from the band to be used.

Despite the fact that Joan Jett was an executive producer on The Runaways, do not watch it expecting a history lesson. Because the movie, although based on member Cherie Currie’s bio Neon Angel, is partly fact and partly fiction, but all fantasy: sex, drugs, more drugs, rock & roll, heartbreak, and dreaming.
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The Notorious Bettie Page

By Less Lee Moore

Called “the greatest pinup model that ever lived” by pinup photographer Art Amsie, Bettie Page was nothing if not an enigma. The now-iconic images of her alternate between sweet, sassy cheesecake shots and those fetish photos and films that were brought before the Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in the mid-1950s. It is this contrast and conflict that director Mary Harron examines in her 2005 film, The Notorious Bettie Page.

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I’m The Real Victim Here: I Spit On Your Grave Remade and Revisited

By Michelle Patterson

Victimhood has had an ironic stranglehold on cinema since the medium’s very inception. The “woman’s picture,” along with the romantic comedy and action-adventure genres, tap into the potential for an audience to live both vicariously through the film and also fully explore their empathetic side. The horror film has also allowed this to continue for over a century now.
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The Dad Abides: Tron: Legacy

By Lisa Anderson

There have been a lot of father-son issues in movies lately.

Tony Stark deals with his father’s legacy in Iron Man 2. Robert Fischer’s feelings toward his recently departed father make possible the titular mind-crime in Inception. In The Town, Ben Affleck’s character has a troubled relationship with his jailed dad. Even the critically panned Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps is about the daughter of Gordon Gekko. (Okay, it was actually about her boyfriend, but still.) It’s easy to wonder if it’s just coincidence—after all, fraught relationships are an easy way to raise the emotional stakes in a story—or if there’s something going on the in popular subconscious. No recent movie has put father-son dynamics as close to the forefront, though, as Tron: Legacy.
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Sister Smile (Suor Sorriso): The Tragic Tale Of The Singing Nun DVD

By Hanna

Suor Sorriso, also known as Sister Smile, is a cult classic in a lot of ways; it has also served to revive interest in the real-life “Singing Nun,” also known as Jeannine Deckers. There has been a demand for Sister Smile on DVD for some time; many viewers will be watching this film for its position in cinema history. Whatever its cinematic merits, though, I found the almost entire lack of factual accuracy or congruency difficult to surmount.
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My Heart Belongs to Jackie: Smokey and the Bandit II

By Eric Weber

As a connoisseur of horror and cult films, one might think that I would have absolutely zero interest in the action/comedy series Smokey and the Bandit. For one, the movies are all about trucks and cars, which does not appeal to me at all; and secondly, the smart-alecky, “good ol’ boy” humor can quickly become annoying.

Luckily, the movies are graced with a great cast of actors that make all of these macho hijinks watchable. I am definitely a fan of Burt Reynolds; I think he has a really good sense of humor about his image and is a legitimately funny guy. Sally Field is, of course, cute and perky. Yet the adorable Jerry Reed seems to be the unsung hero of the series with his infectious smile and charming personality. These performers enhance the second movie in the series, Smokey and the Bandit II, by taking what could have easily become a plodding and simple car chase movie and making it one of my favorites

Then we have Jackie Gleason.

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Don’t Give Up: Go Stir Crazy

By Jemiah Jefferson

“I only have one speed: balls out.”

One of the essential films of my childhood was released in 1980, and I am almost completely certain that I saw it in the theater, being an avid fan of both Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder by the age of eight. Besides hearing Pryor’s comedy albums, I had also been lucky enough to catch Silver Streak on late-night TV as a wee one, and I most absolutely had seen The Wiz in the theater, and loved the hell out of it. And I am fairly certain I came out of the womb as a fan of Gene Wilder; no one can prove otherwise.

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