The new year is upon us, meaning it's time to suffer through another January filled with cinematic junk the studios don't believe in. As the below reviews confirm (with the exception of Abduction), their lack of faith is more than justified.
Later This Month:
Smokin' Aces (Slant magazine)
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story (Slant magazine)
In Theaters:
Code Name: The Cleaner (Slant magazine)
Black Christmas (2006) (Slant magazine)
TV:
Valerie on the Stairs - Masters of Horror (Season 2) (Slant magazine)
The trailers for Smokin' Aces looked rather off-putting at first (kind of in the line of the whole lame-ass Tarantino retread; I enjoy his films, but the influence they've had on film culture is terrible). Once I found out it was the same director as Narc, which I loved, I had some hope, but your review seems to only confirm my initial expectations. So sad. That one will wait for DVD in my book.
Posted by: rob | January 05, 2007 at 10:18 PM
The movie is empty and dull on its own; the fact that it's from the same director who made Narc - in my mind a really lean, muscular, character-driven work - makes it that much more disappointing. I can't understand why he decided that a ten-years-too-late Tarantino clone was worth making, but man, the thing just sits there, trying to be hip and edgy and sexy and thrilling, and only managing to be flashy and scattershot and a dreadful, uninvolving nothing. A month after seeing it, I'm still bummed about how lousy it is...
Posted by: Nick | January 05, 2007 at 10:27 PM
Sounds like the most kind of depressing movie there is, especially during this time of the year. By the way: sorry about "The Cleaner." If I wasn't out of commission from surgery, I'm sure Ed would've had me cover it, which, despite it being so obviously a peice of crap, I wouldn't mind. In a strange way, I'm looking forward to the next Tim Allen movie... of course, I've always been something of a movie masochist.
Posted by: rob | January 06, 2007 at 12:09 AM