Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

HURT LOCKER – I found this a bit less impressive than I’d expected, given the Oscars it won. Over-rated, with characters that just don’t mean anything; to each other or the viewer.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

BUCK – I was reluctant to watch this film; how interesting could a film about a horse trainer be? Well, it turns out it’s pretty good, thanks to a surprisingly charismatic central figure in Buck.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

THE LAST MOUNTAIN – No real revelations; coal mining is destroying the Appalachians, and the lives of many in the area. Well produced film captures some of the impact on one community.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

THE RED CHAPEL – Interesting bit of sneaky documentary work. They were able to get away with a lot by not speaking English. I felt bad for Jacob, as he was lead into this project under something of a false pretence by the film maker.

LEPRECHAUN – So very bad on so many fronts, but it’s a funny enough film, especially since Jennifer Aniston is the highlight of the film.

WELCOME TO NORTH KOREA – Most of the footage here is from State-guided tours, so there’s nothing very revealing in the video – that’s mostly in the narration.

RARE EXPORTS – This is a fantastic film about the discovery of the real Santa and his elves. Evil, evil, naked elves.

TRAINSPOTTING – A classic film with a phenomenal cast.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT – This film features one of the cheeriest “I’m making a bomb!” montages ever produced. This is a whole lot cheesier and much more shallow than I remember.

“We’re kids – what are they going to do – it’s a prank!”

In 1986? Maybe not…

In 2011? Waterboarding.

You’d think that ONE of those books he read on how to build an Atomic Bomb would have talked about radioactivity and its dangers. Maybe they’d have made passing reference to Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. or Louis Slotin on the real Manhattan Project…

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

GREMLINS 2 – This has not aged any better than the first one. While I do enjoy much of the jokes at the expense of the company and technology, those are little more than window-dressing… there’s so little of plot of character once the empty jokes are stripped away, that it just feels like a wast of time having watched this.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER – I guess I’m just not the target audience for these Jack Ryan films… I just can’t believe Harrison Ford when he gets into the field and the action gets going. Yes, I know he’s been been in tons of action films, but this just feels hollow, lacking in any believable motivation for characters.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

DEFENDOR – I’m not a big Woody Harrelson fan, but there’s something great about his portrayal of Defendor. It’s described as a dark comedy, but there’s nothing that I’d consider traditionally funny here – this is a tragedy in every sense. This dim man child tries to track down his nemesis, Captain Industry, who stole away his mother decades earlier. Defendor lives in a world all his own, but he does make a difference, despite himself.

CONTAGION – Why was this released in IMAX? It’s not piracy that’s killing the music and film industry, it’s releasing films in 3D or IMAX when they simply don’t need it. I expected two things when this started; I expected this to be a disease that spread insanely fast and far, and I expected the film to end on a down note, but to not tie everything up. The disease itself was quite bad, all things considered. In CSI style, the heroes were able to track the disease progression backwards to its origin with one pig in one kitchen thanks to multi-angle, high definition video that miraculously comes their way. The ending ties things up too nicely, leaving just the hint of the disease returning for a sequel.

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BUCKET OF BLOOD – Stupid hipster jazz fans and spoken word poets love anything non-artistic that’s called art; lucky for abused busboy Walter Paisley who mashes corpses into clay and joins the elite artistic pretenders for just a little while.

THE ARTIST – Two films about unappreciated artists today; though I much prefer George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) to Walter Paisley. In retrospect, I still find it hard to believe that this was a silent film. Oh, there was a little bit of non-soundtrack sound, but it was used mostly for (heh) artistic purposes in telling the story. The first sound was jarring and, rightly, tore at the reality that the film had setup. The reveal at the end could have come across as jokey, but I thought it worked quite well. Shades of so many Hollywood-themed films and classics like CITIZEN KANE, or SINGING IN THE RAIN. While this is something of an Oscar-Bate film, I wonder how wide its appeal could be with a modern-day audience. I’d highly recommend it.

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. Please leave any comments there.

SOLARIS (2002) – The central story changes significantly from the Russian version to this one. While cutting about an hour from the run time, it doesn’t make the film any better. While there’s less brooding, I found there was much less connection with the characters.

LAST WOMAN ON EARTH – Interesting end of the world situation, with sadly typical 1960s gender roles. Everyone’s dead, and this is how a romantic triangle breaks down on a tropical island that’s well stoked with booze and tobacco. Can’t we all just get along and re-populate the planet? Nope, apparently not.

DEMENTIA 13 – I thought that the gold digger wife was going to fare better than she did… Sometimes it’s just not possible to tell where the tide is going in a Corman film.

IF A TREE FALLS – A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT – Documentary about the environmental sabotage group, Earth Liberation Front, who worked hard to release carbon held captive in mansions and universities and condos. I appreciate the motives offered up by the group’s supporters and members, I’ve never been a supported of Black Bloc tactics like this.

DIRT! THE MOVIE – I found this film shockingly simplistic, over the top with its pandering animations and over-simplified definitions. It’s a bit like they were trying desperately to jazz up a boring subject in the same way unhip teachers think that throwing a poorly written lyric over a hip-hop beat will trick students into enjoying calculus.