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Cinema-Scene.com
Volume 5, Number 51
This Week's Reviews: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Party Monster, House of Sand and Fog, The Flower of Evil, Cheaper by the Dozen, Mona Lisa Smile.
This Week's Omissions: NONE.
Director: Starring: Release: 16 Dec. 03
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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of
the King BY: DAVID PERRY
My obtuse, uninformed views of The Lord of the Rings films
have been one of the most divisive stances I’ve taken over the years. With
the print of my reviews on The Fellowship of the Ring (a reluctantly
positive review) and The Two Towers (a glowingly positive review), I’ve
struggled to convey my love-hate relationship with these films but have
still received rotten tomatoes from readers and friends. They cannot
understand how I am enthralled with the effort, but moot on some of its
practice. |
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©2003, David Perry, Cinema-Scene.com, 19 December 2003 |
Director: Starring: Release: 5 Sep. 03
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Party Monster BY: DAVID PERRY
With amazing aplomb, Party Monster directors Fenton Bailey
and Randy Barbato present one of the year’s worst film like John Waters
unveiling his latest effort in camp-dirt chic. These two filmmakers, who
have received accolades for their documentary work (The Eyes of Tammy Faye,
Monica in Black and White), are remaking their 1998 documentary of the same
name about Michael Alig, the bisexual founder of the Club Kids who now
serves time for manslaughter. |
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©2003, David Perry, Cinema-Scene.com, 19 December 2003 |
Director: Starring: Release: 19 Dec. 03
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House of Sand and Fog BY: DAVID PERRY
In the year’s most maddening melodrama, House of Sand and Fog
pits homegrown sloth against foreign opportunism. Both sides are shown
negatively, both sides are martyred. It’s one of the year’s most inept
films. |
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©2003, David Perry, Cinema-Scene.com, 19 December 2003 |
Director: Starring: Release: 3 Oct. 03
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The Flower of Evil BY: DAVID PERRY
Of the five Cahiers du Cinéma film critics who founded the
French New Wave, only one, Claude Chabrol, remains prolific. Unlike Jean-Luc
Godard and the late François Truffaut, the former becoming more radical, the
latter more commercial, Chabrol has been constant. The Hitchcockian
filmmaker who started the movement with 1958’s Le Beau Serge, hasn’t taken
much of a break since. He is slowing down (although he made 50 films in the
1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, he’s made only 13 since), but his product hasn’t
really been hurt. Tellingly, a couple years ago, his film Merci Pour le
Chocolat was acclaimed by those who saw it, as mainstream critics heralded
the faithful remake of Le Femme Infidèle, Unfaithful. |
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©2003, David Perry, Cinema-Scene.com, 19 December 2003 |
Director: Starring: Release: 25 Dec. 03
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Cheaper by the Dozen
BY: DAVID PERRY
I heard it from the grapevine that Steve Martin wants to
adapt his novella Shopgirl into a film, and is looking for backers. I worry
that this might mean lackluster films like Cheaper by the Dozen will become
common, but I take some solace in knowing that he might be able to make
something out of the terrific book. |
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©2003, David Perry, Cinema-Scene.com, 19 December 2003 |
Director: Starring: Release: 19 Dec. 03
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Mona Lisa Smile BY: DAVID PERRY
Adlai Stevenson carts in Katherine Watson (Roberts) from her
Berkley home at the beginning of Mona Lisa Smile so that she might subvert
the Dwight Eisenhower protégées who are churning out Stepford Wives for the
men of America. As long as women, even those in higher education, are
dutiful housewives, conservative values will survive -- the liberals better
send in their best artillery as soon as possible. |
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©2003, David Perry, Cinema-Scene.com, 19 December 2003 |
Reviews by:
David Perry
©2003, Cinema-Scene.com
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