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Articles in Culture and Criticism

Scary Movie 3
March 5, 2007 – 6:11 AM | No Comment

It’s not great, but it delivers. And now for the sentence you never thought you’d read, anywhere. Ready? Okay. “Simon Rex is really good, especially when he’s rapping.” I know, right? Anyway, it’s a Compromise …

Saw II
March 5, 2007 – 6:10 AM | No Comment

I assume the discarded subtitle was “Revenge of Exposition,” because…damn.It’s not good, but it’s fun if you bring the right peanut gallery, which fortunately I did.However: it is not appropriate for children five and under, …

Saving Private Ryan
March 5, 2007 – 6:09 AM | No Comment

Mmm, Barry Pepper. …What? Oh, sorry. I seem to recall critics saying that after the opening sequence, it could have stood a tighter edit, but I didn’t really feel that way; the length felt about …

Saboteur
March 5, 2007 – 6:09 AM | No Comment

It’s one of those Hitchcock movies where none of the character development feels organic, and while the basic plot is clear, the engine of it is totally muddled, and you keep ending up in these …

Roman Holiday
March 5, 2007 – 6:08 AM | No Comment

I really never got the big whoop about Audrey Hepburn. Now I get the big whoop about Audrey Hepburn.

Road to Perdition
March 5, 2007 – 6:08 AM | No Comment

I would have given this movie an A-minus, but the framing voice-over busts it down to a flat B. Why do filmmakers DO that? We don’t NEED it! Leave some goddamn ambiguity; let us feel …

Ringu
March 5, 2007 – 6:07 AM | No Comment

It isn’t as creepy as the American remake, but it holds together a lot better when you think back on it, because it doesn’t feel bound to explain every little thing; it lets you assume …

The Ring
March 5, 2007 – 6:07 AM | No Comment

The movie doesn’t make any kind of sense, and yet I spent the next 24 hours creeped out beyond belief. The “killer video” itself is so incredibly unsettling, and the tinny music on it…[shudder]. I …

Return of the Dragon
March 5, 2007 – 6:06 AM | No Comment

Slower than I’d like — it’s nearly half an hour before there’s fight contact of any kind — and horribly stagy, but still worth watching, for three reasons: 1) the wardrobe, which is ’73 to …

The Ref
March 5, 2007 – 6:05 AM | No Comment

It took a little while to get going, and certain payoffs weren’t quite earned, but I really liked the kid and I really liked Judy Davis; I don’t think her character was written with as …