All posts by Gopal »
Apocalypto (2006) Movie Review
Over the past couple of years, few people in Hollywood have gotten as much negative press as Mel Gibson. And not just Britney Spears showing her hoo-ha type press, but true vitriol. Granted, Gibson’s...
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Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Movie Review
The 1930s were a terrible time in Spain. Mired in a vicious civil war that saw both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia use Spain as a practice ground for WWII, the country descended into...
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Karas: The Prophecy (2006) Movie Review
“Karas: The Prophecy” is, bar none, the most visually spectacular animated feature I have ever seen. It is also the most idiotic, poorly constructed, convoluted, and pointless film I have ever seen. It is...
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Blood Diamond (2006) Movie Review
The race to exploit the vast mineral wealth of Western and Central Africa over the last 15 years has sparked some of the most violent and brutal conflicts the world has never heard of....
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The Last King of Scotland (2006) Movie Review
The late 1960s through the 1970s were a tumultuous time for central Africa. It was during this span that the European powers gave up and/or lost their colonial possessions on the ‘Dark Continent.’ But...
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Renaissance (2006) Movie Review
As computer processing power has increased over the years, we’ve seen more and more creative integration of CGI into film. For the most part, the technology has been restricted to rendering ever more convincing...
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The Black Dahlia (2006) Movie Review #2
In 1947, the horrifically mutilated, disemboweled and exsanguinous body of an aspiring actress named Elizabeth Short was found in a field in Los Angeles. So ghastly was the scene that, combined with Short’s penchant...
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Hard Candy (2005) Movie Review
First time director David Slade’s film “Hard Candy” is an impressive and challenging entry into the revenge thriller genre. The film opens by introducing us to Jeff (Patrick Wilson, “The Phantom Of The Opera”),...
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Beowulf & Grendel (2005) Movie Review
Retelling old tales filtered through modern sensibility seems to be the thing to do these days. The recent films “Troy” and “King Arthur” are examples of this, where the mystical/supernatural elements that made the...
Read More »Tartarus (2004) Movie Review
To fairly review a micro-budget horror film, one must approach it with a different set of standards than those reserved for the typical studio production. Nit picking over production values and special effects quality...
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The Proposition (2005) Movie Review
“Australia . What fresh hell is this?” So ponders the grizzled Captain Morris Stanley (Ray Winstone, “Sexy Beast”), a British Colonial Marshall, as he casts his gaze over the uncompromising and barren wasteland we...
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The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) Movie Review
Documentaries should always be approached with a grain of salt already in hand. While they always purport to tell ‘the truth’ about their subjects, they invariably choose a side and rely on generous helpings...
Read More »Silent Hill (2006) Movie Review
Over the years there have been many movies adapted from other media such as cartoons, comic books and TV shows. The latest alternative media format to get the Hollywood treatment is the video game....
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V for Vendetta (2006) Movie Review
The year is 2020 and the world is in turmoil. The US has collapsed into civil war brought about by plague, while across the pond Great Britain has fallen under the iron grip of...
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Capote (2005) Movie Review
Truman Capote was already a household name in 1959, having written “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” when he boarded a train to Holcomb , Kansas to investigate the brutal massacre of a farm family by two...
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Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) Movie Review
Seeing a movie after you’ve read the book it’s based on is a dangerous proposition for a viewer. Similarly, making a movie based on a popular book is an equally dangerous proposition for a...
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Neighbor No. 13 (2005) Movie Review
Bullying is an ugly reality of growing up that most of us can relate to, either as culprits or victims, but we usually grow out of it when we finish elementary school, or for...
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Ashura-jo no Hitomi (2005) Movie Review
There’s something to be said for the power of the imagination, and never is it more necessary to appreciate the visual arts than when watching a stage play, where, when well performed, the action...
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Syriana (2005) Movie Review
After a major US oil company loses a lucrative bid for the rights to virgin oil fields in Kazakhstan , an unknown upstart oil exploration firm swoops in to snatch up those same rights...
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