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| BITCHSLAP STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
32866 |
| Total Ratings: |
250013 |
| Total Reviews: |
28736 |
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| ZAPPA |
"King of freedom."
Rob Gonsalves says... "Some artists — especially artists like Frank Zappa — must hear Thomas Carlyle in their heads from time to time." (more)
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| LAST VERMEER, THE |
"F for Fake, or taking the mickey out of a true story"
alejandroariera says... "Days after watching producer Dan Friedkin’s directorial debut, “The Last Vermeer,” it dawned on me that there were some superficial similarities between this post World War II thriller and courtroom drama hybrid and “F for Fake,” Orson Welles’ splendid personal essay about fakes, forgeries, filmmaking and the art of illusion, particularly in its critique of how art is valued and by whom. Now, I AM giving “The Last Vermeer” far more credit than it deserves, but the film is at its best whenever one of its two leads, the legendary Dutch art forger Han van Meegeren, is on screen pontificating about art. Like Hungarian painter and forger Elmyr De Houry, one of Welles’ many subjects, van Meegeren, at least as portrayed by Guy Pearce, is a flamboyant, charming bon vivant who is sticking a middle finger at art critics and collectors and museum curators alike. Van Meegeren is, in Clifford Irving’s words when describing De Houry (and as recited by Welles in “F for Fake”) “a man of talent taking the mickey out of those who had rejected him, translating disappointment into a giant joke.” (It takes one to know one: Irving, after all, published a fake biography of Howard Hughes in the early 70s.) Welles’ questions also hang over “The Last Vermeer” as well: “Is it art? Well, how is it valued? The value depends upon opinion, opinion depends on the experts, and fakers like Elmyr makes fools of the experts…” Too bad that the script by James McGee, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby doesn’t trust its source material, “The Man Who Made Vermeers,” Jonathan Lopez’s biography of van Meegeren and an investigation of the network of illicit commerce that made his forgeries possible. I suspect Lopez digs deeper into some of these ideas explored by Welles and that a more faithful adaptation of the book would have made for a better, more ambitious film." (more)
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| FREAKY |
"Fun parts of its two parents, but not the crazy mashup it could have been."
Jay Seaver says... "This movie was almost certainly called "Freaky Friday the Thirteenth" at some point of it being pitched and developed, and I hope the producers reached out to Disney, Paramount, New Line, and/or the estate of Mary Rodgers in the hopes of possibly using that title, because it can't hurt to ask, right? It's fun to imagine what this would be like as a way-off-kilter entry in the franchise(s), rather than a mostly-fun riff that doesn't quite live up to its insane potential." (more)
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| WOLFWALKERS |
"Cartoon Saloon's best bit of animated Irish magic yet."
Jay Seaver says... "The pace of animated film production means that, so long as their work is staggered properly, I can probably get away with calling two or three people the best purveyors of animation out there without it looking too much like I'm being overly enthused about whatever I've seen last. Tomm Moore and the rest of the team at Cartoon Saloon in Kilkenney, Ireland are in that group, and "Wolfwalkers" may be their best movie yet, a kid-friendly adventure that hits familiar notes but never misses." (more)
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| AMMONITE |
"You can miss out on a lot by trying to be really, really sure."
Jay Seaver says... "The opening scene of "Ammonite" - a woman on her knees doing scut work being rudely brushed aside so that men can do something which involves erasing the important contribution of a woman - isn't the movie in miniature, thankfully, but that just makes one wonder why it's so prominent. The film is instead a small love story where the tension is the point, one that would probably impress a bit more if it hadn't appeared in such relatively close proximity to "Portrait of a Lady on Fire", which shares more or less the same structure." (more)
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| MANK |
"Meet the Baron"
Peter Sobczynski says... "Ever since “Citizen Kane” became officially enshrined as “the greatest American film” following its revival and reevaluation in the late 1950s, a virtual cottage industry of books, articles and documentaries has developed dedicated to chronicling its history. Most of these, not surprisingly, have focused on Orson Welles, both in the way that he revolutionized the art of cinema forever with the innovations that he single-handedly brought to his first film project and in the titanic battle that arose between him and William Randolph Hearst, the powerful publishing tycoon who was its obvious inspiration. And yet, the most famous of these examinations, Pauline Kael’s controversial 1971 essay “Raising Kane,” was one that raised the then-heretical notion that the true genius behind “Citizen Kane” was Herman J. Mankiewicz, the legendary Hollywood scribe and raconteur who was credited as co-screenwriter with Welles (indeed, they wound up winning the film’s only Oscar) but who, according to Kael, was said to be the primary influence behind it all." (more)
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| CHICK FIGHT |
"A swing and a miss."
Rob Gonsalves says... "A movie about a secret fight club for women to work out their rage probably shouldn’t be as bland as "Chick Fight."" (more)
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| LET HIM GO |
"The Furies"
Peter Sobczynski says... "Although “Let Him Go” clearly aspires to be a modern-day Western—the kind where people ride in on pick-up trucks and station wagons instead of horses (though they can be deployed in a pinch when available)—it is a film that plays more like a bizarre mash-up of a typical Lifetime movie melodrama and those later “Death Wish” sequels where Charles Bronson continued to wreak bloody havoc on those who crossed him despite being well past retirement age. The difference is that those movies at least had no illusions that they were anything other than one-dimensional potboilers while “Let Him Go” is constantly laboring under the impression that it is saying or doing something of artistic significance even as it is constantly serving up the same hackneyed goods." (more)
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FILMS I NEGLECTED TO REVIEW: HANG ON TO YOURSELF
by Peter Sobczynski |
| "Please enjoy short reviews of "The Croods: A New Age," "Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square," "The Happiest Season," "Lovers Rock," "The Mystery of D.B. Cooper," "Stardust" and "Uncle Frank,"" (more) |
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'THIS ISN'T JUST A SPOKE IN MY MENSTRUAL CYCLE.'
- Veronica, Heathers
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