AltWeeklies Wire
'Choke' is More Like a Group-therapy Sitcom Than a Movienew
Choke may be an adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, but it actually has a number of influences: It is predictably indebted to Fight Club, it intentionally carries echoes of The Last Temptation of Christ, and—probably less deliberately—it feels a lot like the TV show My Name Is Earl.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
09-24-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Choke, Clark Gregg
Director Clark Gregg 'Choke's on Chuck Palahniuk's storynew
Gregg's adaptation retains Palahniuk's gift of gab, but when it needs to step up and make a statement about sex addiction, contemporary maturity, America's moral decline -- anything, really -- Choke ultimately chokes.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
09-24-2008 |
Reviews
Keira Knightley Reigns in 'The Duchess'new
The Duchess' focus on prefeminist social predicaments make it more intelligent and classy than the usual royal bodice ripper.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
09-24-2008 |
Reviews
'Choke': How to Turn a Cult Novel into a Movienew
Making your first film is challenging enough. But writing and directing a movie about a sex addict who intentionally chokes on food in restaurants to engender sympathy and make money? Well, that's something else entirely.
San Diego CityBeat |
Anders Wright |
09-24-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Choke, Clark Gregg
'Lakeview Terrace': Suburban Nightmarenew
Oh, to live to see such a rarity: a horror movie for grown-ups!
Colorado Springs Independent |
Maryann Johanson |
09-23-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Neil LaBute, Lakeview Terrace
'Operation Filmmaker' is an Engrossing and, At Times, Infuriating Documentarynew
Not only are the connections driven home a little more forcefully than necessary, like the War In Iraq, Operation Filmmaker has no ending. Instead, it falls into a cycle of repetition until Davenport and her subject finally melt down beyond repair and the story, like much of life, goes unfinished. No conclusion is offered.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-23-2008 |
Reviews
'Igor': A Good Hunchnew
The latest it's-for-kids-but-it's-really-for-their-parents-too animated fantasy flick is Igor, starring the voice of John Cusack in the title role.
NOW Magazine |
Deirdre Swain |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Igor, Anthony Leondis
'Sukiyaki Western Django': Takashi Miike's Misfirenew
Set up in a brief, bizarre introduction by Quentin Tarantino in cowpoke garb, the film is the story of an introverted gunslinger who arrives in a remote village where two colour-coded gangs, the Genji Whites and the Heike Reds, are locked in an endless feud.
NOW Magazine |
Norman Wilner |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Choke' Finds an Unexpected Vein of Sweetness in Chuck Palahniuk
Clark Gregg took Palahniuk's Choke as screenwriter and director and found another vein. Buried beneath the blasphemy and the bodily fluids and the self-loathing was a story about redemption. About recovery. About love.
Salt Lake City Weekly |
Scott Renshaw |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Towelhead': As Classy as Its Titlenew
Based on the acclaimed novel by Alicia Erian, the movie desperately wants to be pushy and transgressive. But it's so airless and devoid of empathy for its subjects the whole film seems to take place inside a hermetically sealed bubble of smugness.
Philadelphia Weekly |
Sean Burns |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Miracle at St. Anna' Shows War Isn't the Genre for Spike Lee
Spike Lee boxes outside of his directorial weight-class with a war story bogged down by ham-handed smacks of magical realism and over-pronounced examples of racial prejudice.
'Battle in Seattle': At Last, Our WTO Protests Hit the Silver Screennew
I'd love to tell you that Battle is a feat of guerrilla filmmaking or a Godardian critique of international capitalism, but it's conventional to its core.
Seattle Weekly |
Brian Miller |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Lakeview Terrace' is One of the Toughest Racial Dramas Hollywood's Seen Since Rodney Kingnew
By scrambling the typical power relationship Lakeview Terrace focuses our attention on power itself, and by plunging into the subject of black bigotry, still relatively taboo in mainstream movies, it gets us closer to the truth of bigotry in all its forms than we're liable to get watching another pious exercise in white atonement.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Igor' Struggles to Balance Horror and Family Genresnew
Some of the nasty jokes may seem shocking with young ones around, but they'll keep adults awake through the utterly, painfully familiar three-act snooze-fest in which yet another character finds his place in the world by learning to accept himself.
Las Vegas Weekly |
Jeffrey M. Anderson |
09-19-2008 |
Reviews
'Lakeview Terrace': Samuel L. Jackson Is the Cop Next Doornew
Director Neil LaBute mounts stealth attack on viewer sensibilities.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
09-19-2008 |
Reviews
