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Underdeveloped "Woodstock"

8/28/2009

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Whether you've seen Michael Wadleigh's iconic documentary Woodstock,
listened to one of many CD box sets or simply got caught talking to your hippie uncle at your family reunion, the mere mention of the Woodstock Music and Art Festival is more than enough to make even the most straight-laced businessman escape to a carefree time of dancing hippies and mind-expanding drugs. Nearly every account of the "Aquarian Exposition" has had the seemingly impossible task of capturing what it was like to be a part of the hippie throng. Like unique snowflakes that come together to create a blanket of snow, individual experiences at Woodstock are what made the three days of peace and music more than just another music festival.


In Taking Woodstock, director Ang Lee attempts to capture the individual experience of Elliot (Demetri Martin), the man who not only inadvertently made the festival a reality but also saw his life changed because of it. Wisely choosing to stay away from Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin look-alikes, Lee forgoes the music from the famous stage and instead focuses on the people living in the sleepy village of White Lake, New York before the hippie invasion took place. 

Read more after the jump!



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Jeepers Creepers, it's The Mystery Team!

8/28/2009

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No mystery too big, and no mystery too small. In their heyday The Mystery Team were the lovable little neighborhood sleuths in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown. Their childlike innocence was so charming as they got down to the root of who stepped on a bug. Now, these three boys are all grown up, but they haven't shaken their childlike sense of wonder or their foolish games of solving simple mysteries for a dime. The cases have dried up, and now people are tired of these 18 year-old man-boys. The boys seem ready to hang up their magnifying glasses until one last case comes knocking on their door, and this time it's a real mystery.  One big case. Zero clue.

more after the jump...


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"Thirsty" for more vampires?

8/14/2009

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With all the vampire hoopla in Hollywood these days it would be easy to write off Thirst as just another Twilight knock-off trying to cash in on the popularity of a genre whose better days may already be long gone. Lucky for us, Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park has an entire ocean between him and the horridness that is Hollywood – leaving him alone to create a vampire movie that juxtaposes moral obligation with the carnal pleasures that vampires seem eternally unable to escape. And it very well may be the most beautiful love story I’ve ever witnessed.

More after the jump!


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Directorial debut from "Chappelle Show" co-creator surprisingly has "The Goods"

8/14/2009

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If you would have asked me this time last week, I would have told you I had no doubt The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard was going be abysmal. It's partially my own fault--I feel I'm pretty hard on comedies: like horror movies, they rarely deliver on what they promise. I'm also not-so in love with The Goods star Jeremy Piven. Sure, when HBO first suckered me into watching Entourage—a new show about a group of douchebags and their famous friend—it was in no small part thanks to Piven's charm, but after a couple seasons of Piven's one-trick pony take on a hyperactive Hollywood agent, I swore the whole mess off.

Well, after actually watching the movie I swore I'd hate, I'm pleased to say that The Goods is actually funny--not enough to suck me into watching Entourage again--but funny enough to overlook my differences with Piven's career choices and sit through 90 minutes of desperately politically incorrect comedy.

Piven motorboats Flight of the Conchords' groupie Kristen Schall, and Kathryn Hahn tries to seduce a 10-year-old boy after the jump!


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"Bandslam," surprisingly, doesn't suck that bad

8/13/2009

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Bandslam is like the bastard child of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and High School Musical. It takes the almost-hipness of the first and squashes in the perkiness and stereotypes of the latter. But, don't let its enthusiasm fool you, dear readers, should you be bored this weekend and have already watched the greatly anticipated District 9 AND The Time Traveler's Wife (or should you need something to take your 'tween niece to), Bandslam is a decent option--albeit not near close to perfect.


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The Mediocre-ish Getaway

8/7/2009

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Since seeing A Perfect Getaway three days ago I've been mulling the  movie over in my head quite a bit because I couldn't figure out what to say about it. I knew I didn't  enjoy it, but I also knew there were plenty of mindless moviegoers out there who might. A Pefect Getaway was so bland it left me at a loss for words. I even checked Rotten Tomatoes to see if one of my fellow movie reviewers could inspire me (they couldn't) and was not surprised to find A Pefect Getaway at 47% - precariously perched in the middle of the road. This movie is just there - you won't be better or worse off for having watched it unless you're trying to impress a date and want to get laid. It is harmful to the overall quality of films in general but harmless fun at the same time.




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Heart beats Paper

8/7/2009

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I can’t speak for every indie movie lover regarding Paper Heart. There will be some people who love the docu-comedy starring comedienne Charlyne Yi. You just couldn’t count me in that crowd. Not that I hated this movie, but it just didn’t do it for me. Here’s why.

In the beginning of the flick, Yi admits that she’s never believed in love, no matter footage of her as a child making her dolls get married says differently. So, Yi sets out across the country to interview couples and see if she can figure out exactly what love is. Her interviews with regular folks—rowdy bikers, Elvis wedding officiants and long-time couples—are intertwined with a fictional account of a relationship developing between Yi and George Michael Bluth…er…we mean Michael Cera. No wait, we mean that dude from Superbad. Aw, screw it; they’re all the same, no matter how cute and awkward they are. Anyhoo…some people might believe these scenes are also part of the documentary given how spontaneous they feel; however, given recent reports that Yi and Cera broke up—oh, wait, no they never “ever dated”—there is no doubt that these scenes are faked.



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