Kim Morgan's DVD Talk DVD Reviews https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list/DVD Video DVD Talk DVD Review RSS Feed en-us Beyond the Sea DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/16214 Thu, 09 Jun 2005 20:13:33 UTC Recommended

Beyond_the_sea Beyond the Sea

Remember back around 2001 when Kevin Spacey started singing? It was at a televised all-star tribute to John Lennon at New York's Radio City Music Hall where the Oscar winning actor belted out a mean version of the oddly chosen song "Min...Read the entire review

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The Hunting Party DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15903 Fri, 20 May 2005 00:33:18 UTC Skip It

Hunting_party The Hunting Party

My what an unpleasant western The Hunting Party is--and not in that good unpleasant way.

And what an unpleasant experience for actress Candice Bergen who, unless she gets off on this stuff, is stuck in a film where she's dragged through dirt, nearly raped numerous times, full on raped and then stuck with her rapist and a bunch of dirty outla...Read the entire review

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Johnny Reno DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15901 Thu, 19 May 2005 22:57:22 UTC Rent It

Johnny_reno Johnny Reno

The 1960's were an especially interesting time for Westerns with many moving to foreign soil--especially Italian soil. The best example of course, being Sergio Leone's Dollar's trilogy which remains one of the genre's most inventive, artistic, oft copied and heralded series.

But the '60s showed varied intrigue within American Westerns. From the enjoyable, jokey Western Cat Ballou (1965) starring a slinky Jane Fonda and a drunkard Lee Marvin to the double punch of Monte Hellman's masterpieces The Shooting and Ride in th...Read the entire review

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Blue DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15900 Thu, 19 May 2005 22:57:22 UTC Skip It

Blue Blue

In the annals of '60s Westerns (a genre and time-period I discussed briefly in my review for Johnny Reno) Blue (1968) is one of the era's oddest. And though I can't attest to watching every Western cranked out in the 1960's, it surely has to be one of the worst.

And I really hate to say this as I generally love watching actor Terence Stamp (especially '60s Stamp who so impressed in films li...Read the entire review

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The Barefoot Executive DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15899 Thu, 19 May 2005 22:54:37 UTC Skip It

Barefoot Though some beg to differ, I think Disney's last live action heyday occurred in the 1970's.

Escape From Witch Mountain? No Deposit No Return? The North Avenue Irregulars? Freaky Friday? True, a few of these pictures don't hold up quite as well but then, others seem to deepen (Freaky Friday in particular). With that, I had higher hopes for the 1971 Disney picture The Barefoot Exe...Read the entire review

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The Longest Yard: Lockdown Edition DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15779 Wed, 11 May 2005 04:21:20 UTC Highly Recommended

Burt_1

I talked to an older "film fan" last week who, with supposed higher tastes in cin-e-mah, looked at me aghast when I stated how much I loved The Longest Yard. "The Longest Yard? Oh please. Now there's a movie that's OK to re-make, it's a terrible film."

"What?" I said stunned and then "Why...why would you think it so awful?"

"Oh Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit...you know."

"No, no...I don't. Firs...Read the entire review

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Jiminy Glick in LaLaWood Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15687 Sat, 07 May 2005 00:37:48 UTC Recommended

Jiminy_glick Here's the question you have to ask yourself—do you think Jiminy Glick is funny? If the answer is no, then you'll have a hard time spending 90 minutes with the corpulent, star- struck celebrity interviewer in his debut film, Jiminy Glick in LaLaWood. But—if the answer is yes then, like me, you'll be laughing yourself silly even while acknowledging the movie is oftentimes just plain stupid.

But then...Read the entire review

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An Awfully Big Adventure DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15611 Mon, 02 May 2005 08:23:19 UTC Rent It

Rickman_2 An Awfully Big Adventure

An Awfully Big Adventure is the film where I thought: That's the Hugh Grant I like.

Sure, he can be charming as the bumbling insecure Brit perpetually nervous around women (check Four Weddings and a Funeral--a film I could barely stand and Notting Hill) but in Adventure (directed by Mike Newell's Four Weddings)--...Read the entire review

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The Carol Burnett Show: Let's Bump Up the Lights! DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15563 Sun, 01 May 2005 20:49:16 UTC Rent It

Carol The Carol Burnett Show: "Let's Bump Up the Lights!"

Go ahead and call me a big square (or a male hairdresser), but I happen to think The Carol Burnett Show is funny. Sure, we grew tired of Vicki Lawrence milking that Mama character (and on that show! Mama's Family!) and yes, Tim Conway went on to the illust...Read the entire review

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xXx: Sate of The Union Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15559 Sun, 01 May 2005 06:40:19 UTC Skip It

Cubexxx Even in meaningless tripe Ice Cube—the actor—seems to do no wrong. From his breakthrough performance in Boys N The Hood, to his Gulf War s...Read the entire review

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The Rifleman Boxed Set 3 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15551 Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:22:41 UTC Highly Recommended

Chuck_connors When choosing to review the classic television show The Rifleman (Boxed Set Collection 3), I came with little knowledge and some anticipation. Though I was aware of director Sam Peckinpah's involvement (he was series creator and directed some episodes) and had vague memories of that iconic opening ("The Rifleman!" proclaims the announcer with the camera literally, positioned at the hip of a man blasting his rifle ...Read the entire review

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My Architect DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15296 Wed, 13 Apr 2005 03:27:14 UTC Highly Recommended

Proving that even the most normal looking fellow can come from significantly screwy roots, Nathaniel Kahn's intensely personal My Architect is an intriguing journal of paternal discovery.

Though Kahn, son of famed twentieth century architect Louis Kahn, isn't dipping into Capturing the Friedman's territory or the land of Grey Gardens (his family isn't that scandalous or fabulously strange) he, nevertheless, dissects the elusive, questionable acts of his very private late father. The result is a film that's moving--personally and architecturally speaking--and frequently frustrating—Kahn, realistically, just cannot get all his questions answered.

Read the entire review

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Little House on the Prairie - The Complete Season 7 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15208 Thu, 07 Apr 2005 05:37:35 UTC Rent It

OK—if you at all remember Little House on the Prairie, the name "Sylvia" will surely ring a bell. Maybe a few bells. One of the most controversial and racy episodes the show ever aired (well, maybe it's next to Albert becoming a morphine addict and vomiting on screen--but that's another season) "Sylvia" was the two-parter in which the growing-up-fast Albert (Matthew Laborteaux) falls in love with a girl who's raped, impregnated and…well, I won't reveal the ending for you.

Yes it's Melrose Place on the Prairie, Michael Landon style, with the very early '80s Seventh Season of the popular family drama being amped up with enough extra juice to spread water cooler talk into the realms of rape, racism and the importance of agriculture--you think the show would forget ...Read the entire review

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Good Times - The Complete Fourth Season DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/15205 Thu, 07 Apr 2005 05:37:35 UTC Skip It

If there was a television show any more depressing than that '70s bit of ghetto angst Good Times, I'll be dammed if I've ever seen it. Developed by Norman Lear from All in the Family, the downtrodden dealings of the Evans' family and friends—matriarch Florida (Esther Rolle) her strong, disciplinarian husband, James (the great John Amos), skinny goofus J.J. (Jimmie Walker), pretty, younger sister Thelma (BernNadette Stanis), even younger Michael (Ralph Carter) and sexy single neighbor Willona Woods (Ja'net DuBois)—were a surprisingly popular draw to mid 1970's America.

I understand there were some other downer sit coms during that time (this is after all, the era in which Edith was attacked by a...Read the entire review

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Blue Lagoon/Return to the Blue Lagoon DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14438 Sat, 12 Feb 2005 00:48:22 UTC Skip It

Brooke The Blue Lagoon

Though some consider The Blue Lagoon one of the worst movies ever made, it isn't that execrable. Gorgeously photographed (by Nestor Almendros) with an almost painfully lovely Brooke Shields in the lead, the picture is oddly engaging.

That saying, it is also often, quite stupid, quizzically aimed and lamely acted-- and not by the more famous Shields who became the first ever "Winn...Read the entire review

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All About Lily Chou Chou DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14429 Thu, 10 Feb 2005 16:47:54 UTC Highly Recommended

Lily Writer-director Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou-Chou, is one of the most brutal, oblique and visually stunning films I have ever seen on high-definition video. With a narrative that moves through three years, jumps, seemingly, all over the place and runs over two hours—the picture is both challenging and oddly straight forward. Being a teenager is hard. Being a teenager in Shunji Iwai's landscape can be a nightmare.

The story revolves arou...Read the entire review

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Ps DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14419 Wed, 09 Feb 2005 08:20:59 UTC Rent It

Ps In spite of many critic's declarations against this, Dylan Kidd's P.s. is not the superior version of Brian Glazer's Birth. Where Birth was a Kubrick-ian study of grief—an off-putting, difficult chamber piece concerning children sexuality, rationalization, madness and the clashing of fairy tales against the harsh realities of life, P.s. is an effected indie pop song, dipping into an aging woman's fixation on a youngster with unga...Read the entire review

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Yves St Laurent:Special Collectors Ed DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14352 Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:44:51 UTC Recommended

Helmutyves "It's a dream" murmurs the elegantly ripened fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent as a model saunters past him in a design that pleases him. The expression, which he uses quite a lot, couldn't be more appropriate when looking at a documentary about a man so devoted to the world of reverie, intoxication and of course, fashion that his passion almost seems a side point—its just who he is.

Read the entire review

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Sonny & Cher - The Christmas Collection DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14297 Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:52:42 UTC Skip It

Wow. Like, wow…this was really bad. And why does that surprise me?

I'm not entirely sure. I can say, however, that I unapologetically like Cher—not so much her music but simply Cher, the icon and of course, the actress. She really can be a talented presence. She's also, as proven in films like The Witches of Eastwick and Moonstruck, very, very funny. She's got that special Cher touch that's gone beyond the flipping of the hair and the cackle laugh that in her earlier days was used as exclamation point directed at Sonny. You will see that in abundance in this DVD, The Sonny & Cher Christmas Collection.

Bringing us back to the variety show, a subject DVD Talk reviewer Matthew Millheiser wrote with pitch perfect hilarity when covering The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour , this disc features thr...Read the entire review

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Alila DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14300 Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:52:42 UTC Recommended

Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai is a new wave Altman, a director who engages his audiences with pointed observations about life, his nation and character quirks that range from bitingly real to absurdly dramatic.

Alila, a panorama of modern live in Tel Aviv is a trenchant comedy, unafraid of the seedy and the political, the sexual and unlikable. In fact, within all of the characters presented here, very few would be considered likable—sympathetic or morbidly interesting would be more apt a term.

Beginning with a knockout, 8-minute traveling shot, the film grounds itself (somewhat) within the confines of a crummy, urban apartment complex wherein the characters can't seem to get away from one another. In the working class area of Tel Aviv (something Western viewers don't see much of in movies), the intersecting lives of these people will reveal and connect characters, often hapha...Read the entire review

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Ray Charles - O Genio - Live in Brazil 1963 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14302 Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:52:42 UTC Highly Recommended

Ray1 For any of those thrilled by the opening shot of Taylor Hackford's overrated, Oscar nominated Ray, be prepared for chills while watching O Genio: Ray Charles Live in Brazil.

Like Hackford's Ray, it opens with Ray Charles most famous song, "What'd I Say" only this time around you're watching the real Ray, 32 years young and live. Yes, underscore live five times and you'll understand how truly talented musicians used t...Read the entire review

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Shall We Dance? DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14296 Tue, 01 Feb 2005 04:59:33 UTC Skip It

Shall_we_dance_1 There's a moment in Shall We Dance? where some of you will, literally, want to hide under a table. In film, cloyingly sweet is one thing, abject mortification is quite another.

What's that moment? Well it has something to do with Richard Gere in a tux, holding a rose and riding up an escalator to his wife's place of employment wh...Read the entire review

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I'll Sleep When I'm Dead DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14295 Tue, 01 Feb 2005 04:59:06 UTC Skip It

Clive_beard You wouldn't think it but Mike Hodges' elegantly mounted I'll Sleep When I'm Dead has a great deal in common with Steven Brill's gross-out fest, Without a Paddle. Really. First, there's the titles—both are aphorisms, though I'll Sleep is a bit more elegiac. Then there's the, uh, themes—the consequences of men facing harsh realities while learning to grow up (or not) via horrifying circumstances. There's...Read the entire review

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The Assasination of Richard Nixon Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/13877 Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:13:38 UTC Recommended

Sean_penn1 An intriguing, moving directorial debut, Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon takes a bitter, sympathetic stance on one loser's disgruntlement with the American Dream. Pure character study, Sean Penn plays the real life man of Samuel Byck (Bicke for the movie)—a disenfranchised misfit who's attempts to assassinate Pres...Read the entire review

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Fat Albert Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/13880 Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:11:12 UTC Skip It

Fat_albert A friendless teenager cries. Her tears fall on what works as a companion for most lonely people—her television's remote control. But instead of destroying the mute option, the salty sadness creates magic. What's that magic you ask? Fat Albert.

Squeezing out of the confines of his 1970's toon land to help the lass, the well-meaning problem-solver jumps the time, space, and TV continuum in a scene that can only be descr...Read the entire review

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What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/13522 Sat, 04 Dec 2004 06:13:04 UTC Skip It

Whtaa_shot1l Geraldine Page was a terrific actress. But she could also be quite scary. Particularly as an older woman. The Oscar nominated star of Hondo, Sweet Bird of Youth and Interiors, the veritable fixture of New York stage and actress with a capital A, the quirky ...Read the entire review

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Seed of Chucky Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/13331 Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:37:29 UTC Rent It

Chucky2

Unless you're a fan keeping track, it may be tough to believe that Chucky, that red-headed talking doll possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, has produced five movies. Not three, but five. And for nerdy film enthusiasts it might also be hard to fathom that the massively talented actor of Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Deadwood) has been voicing the little terror since 1988. 17 years. Dear Lord, where does the time go?

Fol...Read the entire review

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Blind Shaft DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/13102 Thu, 04 Nov 2004 20:29:56 UTC Highly Recommended

An enthralling, mordant look at contemporary China, Li Yang's Blind Shaft was a film so biting; it was banned by Chinese authorities.

Working in the theater, Godot-like setting of the oddly, real-life dreariness of Chinese coal mining, Blind Shaft depicts dangerous desperation and corruption with a sobering relevance that'll stick to you in a most uncomfortable way. And Westerners (like me) will be especially curious—how often do we think of Chinese and Coal Mining?

Yang gives you plenty to see in a tightly focused film that works its magic much like a Sam Fuller picture. With definite B elements in place, the film also incorporates horror, noir and neorealism to an almost aching point of tension. You are immediately thrust into this dark world and through its unrelenting force and style, there is no exit.

Adapted from novelist Liu Qingbang's best seller and ...Read the entire review

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Ray Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12992 Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:14:54 UTC Rent It

Ray Charles was a hep cat. He certainly was never this lackluster.

But Ray, Taylor Hackford's biopic on the legendary, influential musician, offers small glimpses into the legend and life of Ray Charles with a pretty paint by numbers approach that screams, cable movie. Taking on, what truly is a colossal task, the picture turns its cinematic pages with an and-then-THIS happened approach that offers little personality past Jamie Foxx's performance as Charles and the brilliant music spiking the celluloid.

The narrative moves, for the most part chronologically, choosing to begin in 1948 when 17-year old Ray journey's to Seattle, the city where he formed the McSon trio and met his lifelong friend, Quincy Jones. It ambles along with his touring the Chitlin circuit, his musical ascension, his marriage to Della Bea (Kerry Washington), his many affairs (chiefly singer Margie H...Read the entire review

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Saw Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12972 Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:02:52 UTC Skip It

Why must cinema make serial killers sooooo clever? It's become as tiresome a conceit as hookers with hearts of gold, opposites always attract and Julia Roberts has a big, huge, I-love-the-world grin (come to think of it, Roberts would make a good serial killer…). But, Lordy! If these movie psycho's aren't artfully offing their victims through the dictates of the Seven Deadly Sins or frying Ray Liotta's brains to add that certain panache to the dramatic dinner party, they're mutilating corpses with such crafty detail that Martha Stewart would look on proud.

In James Wan's feature film debut, Saw, we've got another convoluted serial killer on the loose—a guy, or monster or whatever he is that seems to have found inspiration through the videos of Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails (which makes us think, not so brilliant because that's so very stuck in the '90's). Anyway, this guy, t...Read the entire review

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Team America: World Police Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12839 Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:19:32 UTC Highly Recommended

Team America: World Police is fucking hilarious. But, I will say that it's perfectly acceptable for others to not find it so. Puppets simply may not be your cup of tea. Watching one vomit repeatedly on a city street might not tickle your funny bone. Or you could be Alec Baldwin.

Though it didn't fare as well as projected in its opening weekend (it came in third with $12.3 million instead of the expected $20 million or so) it may pick up steam through word-of-mouth. Who can tell just yet? Either it's not pushing enough buttons for people to be curious (I have some friends who've refused to see it based on the filmmakers' speculative politics) or carefully crafting an all-marionette movie with the patience and precision of a topiary gardener just sounds like a drag. It's their loss or perhaps, gain. People are really sensitive about this picture.

Some critics and viewers...Read the entire review

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The Final Cut Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12793 Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:37:05 UTC Skip It

An interesting, potentially layered concept is turned into a futuristic exercise of lifelessness in director Omar Naim's debut film The Final Cut. A picture that bargain-basement borrows from Phillip K. Dick and even Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece, The Conversation, Final Cut gives us a future that's not too hard to imagine—one of selective memory.

In another stab at understatement Robin Williams plays a depressive, guilt-ridden loner who works for a company that supplies the Zoe Chip. The chip is implanted in your brain at birth, recording all of your memories so that when you die, you can have a "cutter," like Williams's character, not so subtly named Allan Hakman (Get it? Cut? Hack? And then, possibly Gene Hackman for his character in The Conversation?), splice all the important and good memories of your life to show at your funeral. Only the wealthy...Read the entire review

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I Heart Huckabees Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12675 Mon, 11 Oct 2004 18:10:27 UTC Highly Recommended

I Heart Huckabee's is my favorite film of the year. It will easily remain my favorite film of the year and I will, no doubt, watch it repeatedly. I've already seen it four times.

Why am I so obsessed with Huckabee's? I'm not entirely sure. I usually re-watch films that place me in a universe I'm both curious about and totally in synch with, serving the dual purpose of granting me escape from the ickiness of real life (I often detest real life, hence, I HEART movies) and putting me in touch with myself or ideas in ways people or books or music cannot. The aesthetic and movement of film works on a completely different level from other art forms. When it makes you forget the popcorn muncher next to you, it's something quite amazing.

But again...Huckabee's? A screwball, "existential" comedy in which the world is argued as either meaningless (cruelty, manipulation and mea...Read the entire review

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Raise Your Voice Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12676 Mon, 11 Oct 2004 18:09:58 UTC Skip It

Raise your voice? Maybe while you run screaming for the fucking hills.

OK—that's a bit harsh. On second thought, no, it's not. Struggling teen queen Hilary Duff's newest installment in the I-need-to-find-myself genre of eye-rolling cloying girly-ness cinema (yes, there IS a genre) is such treacle you'd have to be a serious fan to get through the thing without losing your lunch.

Especially for me who can withstand and occasionally embrace the tripe cinema of teenage girls, observing hack directors stumble around their sexual appeal and sassiness while supposedly not looking like perverts. Need I remind people how much I enjoyed the Dual/Death Star moguls The Olsen Twins New York Minute? Must I admit to the ridiculous melodramatic value in both Britney Spears' Read the entire review

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Shaun of the Dead Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/12402 Thu, 23 Sep 2004 23:35:09 UTC Highly Recommended

With Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the re-make of Dawn of the Dead and Danny Boyle's critically embraced 28 Days Later, zombies, it would appear, are all the rage. The newest entry into this slow moving (or fast—thanks to Boyle) genre is the funny, charming and oddly inspiring British ode to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead —a film that bears the distinction of managing to meld 29-year old slacker angst with British complacency and cultural dissipation with well...killing legions of brain munching zombies.

Our titular hero is Shaun (Simon Pegg) a guy on the verge of 30 who still works at an appliance store and can't let go of his couch sleeping, mouth breathing, un-employed roommate Ed (Nick Frost). Shaun's girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) has grown tired of her boyfriend's uninspired, irresponsible life—taking the more-than-strong-clue fro...Read the entire review

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