Friday, May 1, 2009

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 04/09

IN THEATRES...

* Adventureland, a welcome surprise. So much more than the trailers suggest. Noah Baumbach meets Judd Apatow.

* Lymelife, another 1980s coming of age drama, this time starring the Culkins as the children of a failing marriage. Good performances, especially from Alec Baldwin and Timothy Hutton, overcome some familiar territory.

* X-Men Origins: Wolverine, wherein Hollywood undoes a character that was once supposedly invulnerable. Way to go, Hollywood!

ON DVD...

* 1612, a boring historical fantasy epic from Russia forces me to ask, "What hath Peter Jackson wrought?"

* Jean Genet's Un chant d'amour, the controversial French writer's 1950 experiment in cinema.

* Deadly Sweet, Tinto Brass' wild twist on crime thrillers is a pop-art, comic-book treat. Storyboarded by Guido Crepax, even.

Would make a good double-feature with...

* Detective Bureau 2-3: Go To Hell Bastards!, a loopy crime flick from Seijun Suzuki and his star, Jo Shishida.

* La Grande Bouffe, in which four Italian men try to eat and screw themselves to death. Not even Marcello Mastroianni can save this tepid shocker.

* Max Fleischer's Superman: 1941-1942, the classic cartoon shorts finally get a reliable packaging. I love these!

* Poil de carotte, Julien Duvivier's 1925 silent picture chronicling the troubled childhood of a freckle-faced redhead. May not sound like much, but it's a potent portrait of a rough life.

* Valkyrie, Tom Cruise plays a German patriot trying to save his country from Hitler in Bryan Singer's lukewarm WWII picture.

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