February 27th, 2009
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5:11 pm est
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Jeremy Wheeler
There’s something special about this underwhelming mess of a Street Fighter reboot that many cinematic cheese-lovers will find very appetizing. The fact is that The Legend of Chun-Li is not at all a good flick, but it’s filled with so much cornball ineptitude that one would think some rather broken mad movie genius was behind it. Broken, because for all the movie’s unintentional laughs, there are plenty more dull moments and barely inspired fight scenes to yawn at in between chuckling at poor voice-overs and hammy performances. In its own way, it is a fine follow-up to the orange-haired Van Damme original in that they’re both bonkers, but while the 1994 effort took the cartoonish route, this reinvention tries hard to find a balance between nonsense and fairly grounded dramatics. Sadly, it’s this kind of bipolarity that undoes the flick, even through the eyes of a bad movie lover. Simply put, if you are going to go full-tilt bananas, then, by all means, commit to it.
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February 27th, 2009
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5:01 pm est
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Perry Seibert
One thing is for sure: fans of the Jonas Brothers will certainly get their money’s worth from Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. Right from the opening scene (an obvious homage to A Hard Day’s Night), director Bruce Hendricks makes sure to give Joe, Kevin, and Nick tons of worshipful close-ups, mixed in with shot after shot of hysterically screaming female admirers. The trio seems comfortable with their devotees on-stage, but in behind-the-scenes moments, at places like a record release party, they seem equally intimidated and thrilled by the massive outpouring of public adoration that they inspire. None of this will win over the unconverted (or even the disinterested), but fans will soak it up — and they should.
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February 27th, 2009
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8:00 am est
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Jason Buchanan
Teaching is tough all over, and being a good educator means not only taking as much away from the classroom experience as you put into it, but also accepting the towering responsibility of holding sway over impressionable minds. So goes the story in The Class, a film about the efforts made by a bright young French teacher to reach his uninterested students, as well as an honest examination of how people interact in an environment where everyone is expected to get along.
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February 24th, 2009
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4:05 pm est
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Cammila Alberston
Just Shoot Me - Season 3: Think back to a time when the four-camera sitcom was king, and David Spade was just the star to carry it.
The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice: What a coincidence! “Judas Chalice” was the name of my high school goth band — around the same time Noah Wyle was an in-demand actor.
Breaking Bad - Season 1: This show really takes me back to the days when I was negotiating meth sales with my own dying chemistry teacher. Though he didn’t have Bryan Cranston’s wholesome charm.
Also on DVD this week: The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Sex Drive, Chris & Don. A Love Story, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, The Matador, On the Other Hand, Death, Take, What Just Happened?, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, and Summer Heights High.
February 24th, 2009
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10:00 am est
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Nathan Southern
One of the most curious and interesting benefits of the ‘DVD Revolution’ is the ability to go back and re-watch decades-old series, years after they entered the public eye for the first time, thanks to their re-release on disc. But what of the outstanding network programs (and yes, there are a notorious few) that have either completely evaded digital reissue or that have only received a partial reissue, with no plans to expand beyond a Season One box set?
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February 23rd, 2009
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10:58 am est
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Perry Seibert
After months of talking about the Oscar nominees, breaking down the possible odds for the major categories, seeing all the nominees before the 22nd, and trying to live a normal life, I’m far too fried to offer any meaningful thoughts on what happened during the Oscars. So enjoy a smattering of musings and observations I made as notes while watching this year’s show.
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February 20th, 2009
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5:22 pm est
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Perry Seibert
One of our favorite Academy Award season traditions is Turner Classic Movies’ 31 Days of Oscar. Every February, TCM showcases hundreds of former Oscar winners and nominees, usually introducing them with even more fun, nerdy facts and analysis than usual. This year, they take the geek-factor up a notch with TCM University, a clever theme that presents the movies as college course material. Each night has a department, each department has its classes, and each class has its pertinent cinematic coursework. Saturday the 21st, for instance, belongs to the American History Dept., where your first class of the day is American Military Heroes, and the lecture starts with 1960’s The Alamo. In honor of this tribute to the film student in all of us, TCM University Dean Robert Osborne recently talked to reporters about the curriculum, and shared his thoughts about this year’s crop of nominees.
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February 20th, 2009
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5:20 pm est
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Cammila Alberston
If people didn’t like seeing movies where African-American comedians dress up like feisty old ladies and beat some sense into their troubled friends and family, studios wouldn’t keep making them. Fans of Tyler Perry’s Madea franchise won’t be disappointed with the 2009 installment Madea Goes to Jail, which finds the tough-talking matriarch in the slammer following yet another temper-fueled brush with the law. Always reactionary but still semi-justified, the latest addition to her rap sheet stems from an incident in a K-Mart parking lot, where she retaliated against a rude parking-space-stealing suburbanite by trashing the woman’s convertible with a stolen forklift. Most of the movie, however, concentrates on a different story.
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