Movies

Minor Frustrations

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My hotness is my strongest weaponWell, that’s annoying.

The blog seems to be intermittently online, which is annoying enough, but Metro hasn’t put any of today’s reviews online, so there’s nothing to link to. Aargh.

Also, I’m still a little sick. Kate thinks it’s the flu. She may have a point; surely a cold would have let up by now.

Anyway, here’s the link-free critical synopsis for your movie weekend:

“Black Book”: Paul Verhoeven follows in Polanski’s footsteps, returning home to tell a Holocaust story. But he’s Paul Verhoeven, so instead of a muted, despairing drama, we get a mildly insane adventure story about a Jewish singer (Carice van Houten) who reinvents herself as an Aryan wet dream to infiltrate the occupation. Oh, Paul.

“The Condemned”: WWE Films strives for relevance with this actioner about ten death-row convicts assembled to battle to the death on a remote island, for the viewing pleasure of the entire Internet. The last one standing gets to go free. Yep, it’s “Battle Royale” for dummies — or “Man Bites Dog” for people who can’t process irony.

“Everything’s Gone Green”: The big deal about this slight romantic comedy is that it was written by Douglas Coupland, one-time master of the zeitgeist. Now, apparently, he’s content to crank out the kind of pandering, unimaginative product his characters would have dismissed back in the day — “You Know, Reality Also Bites in Vancouver”. Good to see Paulo Costanzo bouncing back after “Joey”, though.

“Next”: Nicolas Cage can see two minutes into the future. Julianne Moore wants him to use this power to prevent nuclear terrorism. This seems entirely reasonable to me, but he’s not into it, so there’s a lot of running and chasing, and Jessica Biel in a towel. I’ve never seen a movie flip onto its back and wet itself in helpless surrender before. That counts for something.

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