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SKATELAND - Sundance Movie Review

SKATELAND takes place in 1983 and follows the life of 19-year-old Ritchie (Shiloh Fernandez) as he spends his time between the local roller rink where he works and hanging out with his friends Brent (Heath Freeman), Brent's sister Michelle (Ashley Greene), and Kenny (Taylor Handley). Richie is still trying to figuring out what he wants for his future, he's not sure where his heart lies, never mind where he wants to go to college. Unfortunately, when a tragedy strikes close to home, Richie is faced with growing up faster than he would have liked to and forced to make the decisions he had been delaying.
Skateland is as you have guessed a coming of age story, which had some good moments but was slow at times, especially at the beginning. It seemed to pick up once the big crisis/tragedy happens.
The interesting thing about the movie is that [...]

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AUTHOR: Sandie

POSTED ON:

Feb 7

2010

COMMENTS: 0

CATEGORY: Movie Reviews

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NOWHERE BOY - Sundance Movie Review

NOWHERE BOY is probably one of the best biopic you will ever see. It follows the life of John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) as he grows up in Liverpool in 1955 being raised by his aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his late uncle. John is rebellious, and when he decides to seek out his estranged mother, Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), he increases the conflict between him and his aunt. However, Johns soon forms a strong attachment to his mother, who encourages him to pursue his interest in music. John also now finds the need to revisit his painful past finding refuge in music leading him on a journey that will give birth to The Beatles.
Nowhere Boy was most definitely one of the best movies I saw at Sundance. It had some of the best acting, story, pace and just overall feel. You will not be bored one second. The characters are [...]

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AUTHOR: Sandie

POSTED ON:

Feb 7

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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Adrian Grenier's TEENAGE PAPARAZZO - Sundance Documentary Review

TEENAGE PAPARAZZO, the third documentary from Entourage's Adrian Grenier, is a behind the scenes look at a 13-year-old paparazzo Austin Visschedyk and the world of the Paparazzi in general.
By following Austin, Grenier gains entry in the very secretive world of the Paparazzi revealing the truth behind the highly integrated media system that is powering the whole phenomenon. First you have the paparazzi like Austin who are doing everything legal and illegal to get the kind of shots that is going to make them money. Then you get to at the magazine world, and how they weed through the mass of photos that they receive to find the images that are going to drive the most readers to their content. Then you have the readers who seem to be more invested in the lives of celebrities than their own.
Grenier does a masterful job of delving into this seemingly harsh world [...]

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AUTHOR: Eric

POSTED ON:

Feb 7

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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THE PERFECT HOST - Sundance Movie Review

THE PERFECT HOST, written and directed by first time director Nick Tomnay, is a movie that follows John Taylor (Clayne Crawford, who appears in the new season of 24), a bank robber on the run after a botched bank job, who, using subterfuge, gains entry into the home of Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce - Frasier). Warwick, who is preparing to host a dinner party, starts out the evening being a gracious host but as events start to unwind and identities get revealed, things go from bad to worse.
I have mixed feelings about The Perfect Host. The story can best be described as a constant string of reversals of situation, where one protagonist gains the upper hand and then it switches on you. While this kind of story telling device works well in a heist like movie, here it fell kind of flat as it felt like we were [...]

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AUTHOR: Eric

POSTED ON:

Feb 6

2010

COMMENTS: 1

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SPACE TOURISTS - Sundance Documentary Review

SPACE TOURISTS is a documentary from director Christian Frei that delves into the very recent phenomenon of wealthy people paying million of dollars to go in space as part of the Russian space program. The doc looks at this story from three major angles.
The first angle follows the story of Anousheh Ansari, the first woman to pay millions of dollars to go into space. Her story is one of a passion that is fulfilled, and we get to see her make it to the space station.
The second angle follows Charles Simonyi, the chief architect of Microsoft Office who is going through a rigorous training to also go into space. This is an interesting look into the arduous preparation that even millionaires have yo go through to make it in the stars.
The final angle focuses on the environmental impact of these privately funded space flights on the communities surrounding it. [...]

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AUTHOR: Eric

POSTED ON:

Feb 6

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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THE FREEBIE - Sundance Movie Review

THE FREEBIE is a film about a happy married couple, Darren (Dax Shepard) and Annie (Katie Aselton), who decide to give each other one night of freedom to have no-strings-attached sex with a stranger for each of them. But this seemingly great plan might not turn out exactly how they anticipated it would.
The film was created using a lot of improv and I think it definitely contributes to the realism of the film. I found the story to be very organic and true, and that's why I enjoyed watching it so much. It was as if you were a fly on the wall listening in to this couple's secret conversations and seeing their relationship evolve. I think couples might definitely be able to relate to Darren and Annie.
In order for the movie to work, the most important part was to get two good actors to portray to a couple. I [...]

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AUTHOR: Sandie

POSTED ON:

Feb 5

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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THE ROMANTICS - Sundance Movie Review

THE ROMANTICS centers on seven close friends ever since college, who reconvene to attend the wedding of two of their own, Lila (Anna Paquin) and Tom (Josh Duhamel). Lila's college roomate and best friend, Laura (Katie Holmes), is the maid of honor, but the thing is, Laura is also Tom's ex-girlfriend, whom she is obviously still not over.
The story then unfolds during the night before the wedding as the friends hang out and each go through their own experiences. In addition to Lila, Laura and Tom, we also meet married couple Tripler (Malin Akerman) and Pete (Jeremy Strong), boyfriend/girlfriend Jake (Adam Brody) and Weesie (Rebecca Lawrence), Lila's brother Chip (Elijah Wood) and sister Minnow (Dianna Agron).
While we do see some of the other characters in and out, the film mainly focuses of the relationship between Tom and Laura, and the dynamic with Lila.
I personally enjoyed The Romantics, however it's not [...]

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AUTHOR: Sandie

POSTED ON:

Feb 3

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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ANIMAL KINGDOM - Sundance Movie Review

ANIMAL KINGDOM from director David Michôd tells the story of Josh (played by newcomer James Frecheville) who, after his mom's death, moves in with relatives who happen to be part of the Australian criminal underworld.
The new home is composed of Baz (Joel Edgerton), the sensible and grounded uncle with a wife and kid whom Josh immediately gets attached to. Then you have Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), the drug dealing uncle and Darren (Luke Ford), the cool and young uncle, and finally you have Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) who is the sociopathic black sheep of the family. Finally you have the grandmother (Jacki Weaver) who is the matriarch of the family. I also have to mention Guy Pearce who delivers a solid performance as Leckie, a straight forward cop who is trying to find a way to put the brothers in jail.
Once Josh moves in the house, things start to unravel after [...]

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AUTHOR: Eric

POSTED ON:

Feb 3

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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3 BACKYARDS - Sundance Movie Review

3 BACKYARDS is not a typical movie and it will not appeal to everyone, but I personally really enjoyed it.
3 Backyards takes a look at an autumn day in the life of 3 different people. The first one is a businessman (Elias Koteas), who has been having marital issues, decides to wanders around his hometown when his flight gets delayed, instead of going home to his wife and daughter. The second one is an eight-year-old girl (Rachel Resheff) who makes an unexpected encounter with an adult on her way to school when she makes a wrong turn. The third one is a housewife (Edie Falco) who goes on a bizarre trip when her neighbor, a famous movie star, asks her for a ride to the ferry.
The reason I loved 3 Backyards so much was because it's so simple and yet so real at the same time. There isn't really a [...]

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AUTHOR: Sandie

POSTED ON:

Feb 2

2010

COMMENTS: 0

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HIGH SCHOOL - Sundance Movie Review

HIGH SCHOOL is the comedy stoner movie at this year's Sundance Film Festival. It has everything that you might expect to see and has the potential to have great commercial success.
HIGH School follows the story of valedictorian Henry Burke (Matt Bush) who tried marijuana for the first time the day before the school's principal, Principal Gordon (Michael Chiklis) institutes a zero-tolerance policy against drug use. He implements a mandatory drug test for all the students to be administered the next day, failure of which will result in immediate expulsion. With his college scholarship hanging in the balance, Henry teams up with pothead Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) in order to do the only thing they can think of in order to prevent Henry from being expelled - get the entire school stoned.
I think you can only imagine the kind of hilarious situations these two get into. From Adrien Brody's crazy [...]

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AUTHOR: Sandie

POSTED ON:

Jan 31

2010

COMMENTS: 0

CATEGORY: Movie Reviews

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