All posts by Brian Holcomb »
The Backwoods (2006) Movie Review
John Boorman’s “Deliverance” gave birth to a new subgenre of films featuring middle class white men who desire the stoicism of life in the wild and of a more direct conflict for survival outside...
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Street Kings (2008) Movie Review
Movies like “Street Kings” are sitting ducks in a shooting range for film critics who laugh all through the movie only to condemn it for being so damn entertaining. Most movies are so sedated...
Read More »Sweeney Todd (2007) Movie Review
Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham-Carter have made so many films together that they’re starting to resemble each other. Depp has now made 6 films with Burton and it always seems as though...
Read More »Halloween (2007) Movie Review
Tom Stoppard once wrote a one act play called “The Fifteen Minute Hamlet” which was, as you can probably guess, a pretty incoherent version of “Hamlet” performed in 15 minutes. You can imagine that...
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The Invasion (2007) Movie Review
This has to be the lamest alien invasion movie since the killer tomatoes attacked. I knew going in about the production troubles and the massive reshoots ordered by the studio honchos to ‘fix’ the...
Read More »Sunshine (2007) Movie Review
It’s 50 years from now and once again mankind faces extinction. Not from a meteoric Armageddon, or the inconvenient truth about the environment, but from the death of the sun itself. A second ice...
Read More »Rescue Dawn (2006) Movie Review
Please do not confuse “Rescue Dawn” with a mid-80s Cannon Group production of a Chuck Norris film. This isn’t the movie where Chuck emerges from a river firing a water logged AK-47 in super...
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Hostel: Part II (2007) Movie Review
Eli Roth has the touch of the sophomore prankster. The lasting effect of all three of his films is a certain kind of Grand Guignol “Punk’D”, in which the “mark” is not only embarrassed,...
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Black Book (2006) Movie Review
Paul Verhoeven is a filmmaker who takes no prisoners. He wants nothing more than to fracture reality through his particularly pulpy cinematic lens and to project this grotesque image in front of as many...
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Grindhouse (2007) Movie Review #2
Had “Grindhouse” been made by some up and coming neophyte filmmaker it would’ve been cut to shreds by the critical establishment. But the critical blank check given to Robert Rodriguez, and especially Quentin Tarantino...
Read More »The Lookout (2007) Movie Review
Elmore Leonard has a lot to answer for in regards to the current state of crime cinema. Thin, almost non-existent plots are given the power of verite when they are driven by Leonard’s oddball...
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Messiah of Evil (aka Dead People, 1973) Movie Review
A horror gem by the writing and directing team behind “Howard The Duck”? Hard to believe, but this is the genuine article, a largely forgotten early ’70s classic filled with moments that are so...
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Dead Silence (2007) Movie Review
The horror genre seems to be at a crossroads these days. Following the whole post-modern “Scream” cycle, the long haired ghosts from Japan and the final deluge of bind, torture, and kill films initiated...
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Salvage (aka Gruesome, 2006) Movie Review
The freedom and accessibility of digital video has unleashed a tidal wave of unwatchable horror movies by directors who would have difficulty chronicling a birthday party, let alone a cinematic narrative. This army of...
Read More »Inland Empire (2006) Movie Review
David Lynch is one suave motherfucker. He lives life and makes movies on his own terms and he certainly knows what he likes. One of these things is coffee. He says he drinks about...
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The Host (2006) Movie Review #2
A monster rises out of the Han River and attacks Seoul, South Korea like Godzilla armed with really good special effects. Bong Joon-ho, the director of the serial killer thriller “Memories of Murder”, follows...
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Horrorfest: 8, uh, 3 Films to Die For! / Reincarnation (2005), The Abandoned (2006), The Gravedancers (2006) Movie Reviews
I would guess that by now most of you caught the frenetic commercials for this unique horror “fest” that appeared to be a scary new ride at Great Adventure. The fest played at only...
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Casino Royale (2006) Movie Review / “007 and Counting”: The Life and Times of the James Bonds
In Michael Winterbottom’s “24 Hour Party People”, a film about the London music and club scene of the 1970s and 80s, the Tony Wilson character claims that it was the invention of broccoli that...
Read More »Beat the Bastard Down (2006) Movie Review
Jimmy Duke Traynor makes some bold claims on his website, including having made 114 movies in 12 years in all genres. If true, this would place him in the running for the Rainer Werner...
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