Movies

Division of Labor

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You're in a musical? Hey, me too!Now that Metro’s new Movies section is up and running, I finally get a little help with the coverage; Chris Atchison and Rick McGinnis will be reviewing a couple of titles every week.

The upside is, when two screening are scheduled opposite one another I no longer have to freak out until someone sends me a DVD (or schedules another screening); the downside is, being a gentleman and all, I wound up seeing “Bug” instead of “Pirates of the Caribbean” on Wednesday morning.

Phooey.

Anyway, here are the movies I did see this week:

“Bug“: Despite strong work from both Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd, the essence of Tracy Letts’ claustrophobic stage play doesn’t quite survive the transition to film. (It also doesn’t help that Shannon is a dead ringer for Dwight Schrute from “The Office”.) But in that first creepy hour, William Friedkin does manage to recapture the sense of gathering disquiet we remember from “The Exorcist” — that awful realization that, however things work out, they’re not going to work out well.

“Once“: You say “low-budget DV musical”, I say, “thanks, I’ll go see ‘Norbit’ again”. But John Carney, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova have put together something truly wonderful — a shaggy, genre-busting study of two strangers who forge a marvelous and potentially life-changing connection over a few days, and a few songs, in Dublin.

“Revolucion“: Radio-Canada documentarian Charles Gervais goes to Venezuela and just, like, hangs out and stuff. The result is a rather clumsy look at the Chavez revolution that’s supposedly clear-eyed and balanced, but plays an awful lot like an infomercial.

Also opening this week: “Fay Grim”, “Scenes of a Sexual Nature” and that pirate movie. You can find Chris and Rick’s coverage at the Metro Movies main page.

Today’s post was created on a dial-up connection, by the way. I barely made it.

163 thoughts on “Division of Labor”

  1. I’m not generally a fan of musicals myself but I *loved* Once and blogged about it yesterday too. Difficult to explain the appeal to someone who hasn’t seen the film but what a genuine pleasure it is to watch.

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