AltWeeklies Wire
Porn’s Pimping Price - Linda Boreman’s Story Gets a Muted Treatment
“Lovelace” [mostly] succeeds as a brief biopic of Linda Boreman, a middle-class girl from Florida who became a household name – via her porn appellation “Linda Lovelace” – for which she made only one film, “Deep Throat” (1972).
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
08-06-2013 |
Reviews
12 Months Too Long Com-Rom-Rom-Com Tests Your Patience
As a premise, a doomed marriage sounds like a no-brainer: you can pile on outrageous episodes of slapstick, physical comedy and biting wit. Unfortunately, "I Give It a Year" is a no-brainer.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
08-06-2013 |
Reviews
The Power of Positive Drinking: Teen Alcoholism Has its Perks
“The Spectacular Now” is the work of inexperienced screenwriters. We know this because of their handling — or rather mishandling — of the film’s underlying theme of teen alcoholism.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-29-2013 |
Movies
Blue and Cold: Woody Allen’s Ghost Roams Empty Halls
Woody Allen has bottomed out. His latest attempt at interpreting yet another global mecca — this time San Francisco — through a prism of flailing romance, barely manages to elicit a couple of subdued chuckles.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-23-2013 |
Movies
Unrepentant Cutthroats: Joshua Oppenheimer Leaks Indonesia’s Genocide
At once the most micro and meta combination of cinéma vérité, documentary, and docudrama filmmaking techniques ever assembled, Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” is an earth-shattering cinematic experience.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-21-2013 |
Reviews
Ghost Story: James Wan Abandons Gore for Suspense
Since carving his name as a modern-horror director to be reckoned with, James Wan (“Saw” - 2006) has been moving steadily toward a less literal, more haunting, approach to the genre.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-15-2013 |
Reviews
Western Allegory Pop: How the West Was One
Perhaps more important than what Gore Verbinski’s gleefully postmodern Western isn’t, is what it is.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-08-2013 |
Reviews
The DC Crime Ring Eats Its Own — Hollywood Can’t Help Taking Notice
Copycat redundancies to the recent “Olympus Has Fallen” aside, “White House Down” is an unintentionally laughable action movie that wallows in involuntary cynicism about how America — or screenwriter James Vanderbilt at least — views the White House as the world’s biggest crime ring.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
06-24-2013 |
Reviews
Primer for Serial Killers — Slasher Pic Crosses the Red Line
An irredeemable exploitation horror movie that overplays its subjective point-of-view conceit, “Maniac” will leave viewers cold.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
06-17-2013 |
Reviews
Not Quite Apatow: Rogen, Franco, Hill, and McBride Joke Around
“This Is the End” exposes the narrow limits of the self-referential humor favored by Generation Z comics James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
06-11-2013 |
Reviews
Illegal Alien: Superman the Underdog
“Man of Steel” takes a fresh approach to the well-worn origin of the Superman narrative (first published as Action Comics #1 in 1938).
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
06-10-2013 |
Reviews
Canned Shakespeare — Joss Whedon Falls on His Sword
Josh Whedon’s sophomoric attempt at swimming in Kenneth Brannagh’s waters of expertise — namely adapting Shakespeare plays to film — is akin to watching a wet cat lick itself dry.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
06-03-2013 |
Reviews
Dumb and Dumber: Teen Adventure Fantasy Flounders
Coming on the heels of Jeff Nichols’s superior Huckleberry Finn-styled boys’ coming-of-age movie “Mud,” “The Kings of Summer” reaches farther into the realm of fantasy, but comes up short.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
05-28-2013 |
Reviews
Gen X Grows Up — Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke Put a Cherry on the Cake
For better or for worse — mostly better — Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke may best be remembered for their romantically euphoric trilogy in collaboration with wunderkind Generation X auteur Richard Linklater.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
05-28-2013 |
Reviews
Gatsby In Hell: Flames of Incompetence Consume Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann’s bastardization of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is a demeaning travesty.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
05-20-2013 |
Movies
