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 | | 2. Milk | | | Starring: Josh Brolin Emile Hirsch Director: Gus Van Sant | | Format: DVD Release Date: 8/11/2009 | | Video Reviews Available: 1 |  | Milk - DVD Review By: Sean O'Connell - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 2/27/2009 5:25 PM | |
Thirty years before Sen. Barack Obama broke through a significant political color barrier, Harvey Milk tore down a similar wall that was obstructing America's gay community from holding political office. Milk finds experimental auteur Gus Van Sant taking cautious steps back toward the mainstream to celebrate Harvey's accomplishments. Van Sant's tender human-interest story, which showcases Sean Penn's considerable talents, is a closer relative to earlier efforts such as Finding Forrester or Good Will Hunting than to recent, abstruse features like Elephant, the spare Gerry, or the haunting Last Days. read the full review | |
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 | | 11. Pure 80s | | | | Format: DVD Release Date: 1/23/2007 |
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 | | 15. Curious Case Of Benjamin Button | | | Starring: Brad Pitt Cate Blanchett Director: David Fincher | | Format: DVD Release Date: 5/5/2009 | | Video Reviews Available: 1 |  | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - DVD Review By: Sean O'Connell - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 4/24/2009 5:36 PM | | Every great filmmaker is allowed one bad film. For David Fincher, his first was his worst. An intelligent director, Fincher cut his teeth on television commercials and music videos before making his feature debut in 1992 with a forgettable and regrettable installment in the Alien franchise. It was all uphill from there. Fincher's next five films arguably are modern classics, each impressively different from its immediate predecessor. Gen X fanboys idolize him for the basement-dwelling aggressions of Fight Club. The director brought flash -- and a needed backbone -- to pulp thrillers like The Game and Panic Room. And cineastes found plenty to appreciate in the meticulous musings of Fincher's cold-case police procedural, Zodiac. read the full review | |
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 | | 20. Wrestler | | | Starring: Marisa Tomei Mickey Rourke Director: Darren Aronofsky | | Format: DVD Release Date: 4/21/2009 | | Video Reviews Available: 2 |  | The Wrestler - DVD Review By: Chris Cabin - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 4/10/2009 5:36 PM | |
For those who have been following Darren Aronofsky's career since he broke out in 2000 with Requiem for a Dream, his latest work, The Wrestler, might very well come as a bit of a shock. Unlike Requiem and 2006's The Fountain, the film does not garner its power from hyperactive editing (the former) nor grandiose flourishes of the patently ludicrous (the latter). Shot in grainy 16mm by the estimable Maryse Alberti, a cinematographer who has spent the last few years shooting documentaries, The Wrestler realigns Aronofsky as a director concerned with the slow burn of American neo-realism more than hyperactive pseudo-transcendentalism. read the full review | |
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 | | 22. Waltz with Bashir new! | | | Director: Ari Folman | | Format: DVD Release Date: 6/23/2009 |  | Waltz with Bashir - DVD Review By: Chris Cabin - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 6/11/2009 5:39 AM | |
Despite its blaring phantasmagoria and hallucinatory nostalgia, the central image of Ari Folman's utterly spellbinding Waltz with Bashir is one of brilliant, serene calm. Bathed in street-lamp-yellow glow, three rail-thin soldiers emerge from a starless-black ocean, stark naked, and begin walking onto the shores of West Beirut. Accompanied only by the sustained synths and strings of Max Richter's ominous score, the image reemerges throughout the film, eventually leading to the film's shattering finale. read the full review | |
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 | | 31. Cocaine Cowboys | | | Director: Billy Corben | | Format: DVD Release Date: 7/29/2008 |  | Cocaine Cowboys - DVD By: Chris Barsanti - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 1/12/2007 5:00 PM | |
It's just possible that, some day, America's Most Wanted will make itself a feature-length episode on some larger, multi-criminal subject and release it in theaters. However unlikely and unappetizing that scenario is, it would still end up being vastly more interesting than Billy Corben's documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Although the raw material is here for fascinating viewing -- following, as it does, Miami's epochal shift during the 1980s from sleepy southern burg into ultra-violent shooting gallery for drug cartels -- Corben manages to turn it all into tone-deaf mush. read the full review | |
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