A Dangerous Method
Dec27

A Dangerous Method

A Freudian Slip Up Starring: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen Review written by Robert Patrick Director David Cronenberg is known for his spatterfests, where heads explode like Gallagher watermelons, guts spew from television sets, and severed fingers are nonchalantly plucked like flower petals in a child’s hand. In recent years the maestro of macabre has toned down the science fiction horror elements, replaced them with...

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Dec23

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Of Spies and Sedatives Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth Review written by Robert Patrick Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy must have sounded like a great idea. An espionage thriller based on the acclaimed, serpentine book of the same name. Shifty-eyed spies in dapper suits, mulling around cafes and hiding behind baguettes, all while carrying around pistols under their pant legs. Once you have the plot from the 1974 book down, the next...

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Dec21

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Not Angelina Jolie in ‘Hackers 2’ Starring: Rooney Mara, the android Daniel Craig Review written by Robert Patrick Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, a trilogy of books about the androgynous computer hacker and razor-tongued counterculture herionne Lisbeth Salander, began with the Swedish author’s first installment of the franchise, dubbed “The Men Who Hate Women.” That book, which sounds like...

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Young Adult
Dec16

Young Adult

R.L. Stine, Is This What It’s Like? Starring: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt Review written by Robert Patrick Counterculture queen Diablo Cody cuts her teeth on dialogue that is rife with alliteration, hipster-like musings, and fanged insults. Many would think her writing is a modern, barbed version of Howard Hawks’ spitfire snark. The reality is that Cody’s banter is young, angst driven, and spattered with acid...

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Shame
Dec09

Shame

Patrick Bateman’s Long Lost Cousin Emerges Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan Review written by Robert Patrick If you look under the hood of most movies this year, Michael Fassbender will be there.  The thespian has completed period pieces, comic-book films, biopics about bearded psychoanalysts, and now a film about a vacuous thirty-something whose pilgrimage across the bodies of women everywhere has left his mind...

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J. Edgar
Nov11

J. Edgar

Does this Movie Come with an Ejection Seat? Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts Review written by Robert Patrick Warner Brothers should have renamed J. Edgar “Watch Clint Eastwood Fall Asleep at the Wheel”. This historical biopic about the advent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is terse, rife with plasticity, and about as warm as an insulated container of liquid hydrogen. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, in an...

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The Skin I Live In
Oct21

The Skin I Live In

Marionettes Made of Tissue Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya Review written by Robert Patrick Moral compasses are caked with mud, emotions are pulled like teeth without anesthetic, and colors are spattered like paint cans perforated by bullet holes. The world of sixty-two year-old Pedro Almodóvar is one of ghosts, obsessions, frothy malaise. Never innocuous, the films of the Spanish auteur have always been met by a volley of...

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Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
Oct21

Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

The Revolution In Fragments Starring: Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael Review written by Robert Patrick Director Göran Olsson’s documentary, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, has a clunky, cumbersome title; the name is like a topiary that needs reshaping. Something with more steely brevity, clenched fist punctuality would be more fitting of this snapshot of the Black Power movement in America. Olsson’s thoughtful doc is...

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Take Shelter
Oct14

Take Shelter

When Nightmares Become Your Paul Revere Starring: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain Review written by Robert Patrick Jeff Nichols, the director of “Take Shelter”, is a locksmith at turning the key on rustic, red dirt worlds of volatile friendships and swinging-gate relationships. The filmmaker is only two films into his career – “Shotgun Stories”, his first fiery opus, was a powder keg of a movie –...

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Happy, Happy
Sep30

Happy, Happy

Neighborhood Watch Starring: Agnes Kittelsen, Joachim Rafaelsen Review written by Robert Patrick Anne Sewitsky’s film, “Happy, Happy”, sounds like a syrupy romantic comedy with the trappings of spring-loaded, canned, jack-in-the-box guffaws. Thankfully it doesn’t have the noxious, cap gun humor that one would expect from a fuddy romantic dramedy. If you’ve seen the posters for this film, the marketing...

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