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2008 in brief:
Spring
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Cloverfield runs at a brisk 84 minutes. Except that 11
of those minutes are closing credits. And 18 of those minutes
are a nonsense character introduction where we meet the
college age New Yorkers whom we are supposed to care about
during the 55 minutes of actual story. You’d almost
think the producers worked in television, wouldn’t
ya?
The less than an hour story involves our heroes running
around New York City – Blair Witch Project style with
a hand held camera – as an invincible space monster
stomps on the city. Unfortunately, this time teens incessantly
screaming “oh my God!” quickly becomes more
onerous than ominous.
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Lacks the heart and nuance of Pixar, but the amicably told
moral fable stands well above the rest of the animation world.
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A tribute to the crappy, campy movie of the early days
is still a crappy, campy movie. I don’t know who it
is that thought the quick-spitted banter between Clooney
and Zellweger was clever and cute, but I hope they lose
their job. Leatherheads is awfully impressed with itself,
but Clooney the director never seems to recognize that he’s
not the Coen brothers, and the harder he pushes it, the
sillier he looks.
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Reaches out for Amelie, yet falls well short. But
at least it’s trying, doggon it. It has no shortage
of magical whimsy, but the lively sets, colors and characters
can only go so far in holding up what it ultimately a rather
pale, predictable story. Reese Witherspoon gets herself into
the midst of it, forgettably and unnecessarily, but Peter
Dinklage makes up for it.
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| 21 is the perfectly
representative flick for Las Vegas – glitz and glam
on the surface while essentially empty underneath. And Spacey
makes a fool of himself.
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Yet another film that thinks it’s clever because it
shuffles up the timeline. Unwind the string and pull it out,
and you’ve got nothing more than any given episode of
24. And the mini-cliffhangers at each segment’s
end are often laughable.
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