MORE THAN A GAME
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  Year Released: 2009 MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 102 minutes |
Any filmmaker blessed with such serendipitous narrative riches would be content to recount the not-so-tall tale, but director Kristopher Belman takes it an added step: bringing the larger-than-life back down to a universally relatable scale.
Posted on October 18, 2009 by Michael Dequina
THE OMEN (DVD)
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  Year Released: 1976 MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 111 minutes |
Fox has given “The Omen” a stunning–and appropriately spooky–special edition treatment…
Posted on June 6, 2006 by Michael Dequina
HUSTLE & FLOW
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Year Released: 2005 MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 114 minutes |
IN THEATERS! “Everybody gotta have a dream.” That such a banal statement at face value can come to mean something far more profound and inspiring is reflective of the feat writer-director Craig Brewer achieves with “Hustle & Flow…”
Posted on July 20, 2005 by Michael Dequina
BRIDE & PREJUDICE
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Year Released: 2005 MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 120 minutes |
This take on Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” is less effective, but it’s not for lack of ambition on the part of director Gurinder Chadha…
Posted on March 9, 2005 by Michael Dequina
SWADES
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Year Released: 2004 MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 127 minutes |
SCREENING AT THE SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL, MARCH 11TH! Subtlety nor modulation are not qualities one generally associates with Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, but even more than in his other film of the season, here he reigns in his usual histrionics to impressive effect as Mohan, a scientist working for NASA…
Posted on March 9, 2005 by Michael Dequina
RAINCOAT
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Year Released: 2005 MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 100 minutes |
If Ghosh’s direction places “Raincoat” under the skin, then his writing makes it linger there…
Posted on March 7, 2005 by Michael Dequina
HITCH
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Year Released: 2005 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 115 minutes |
Will Smith has proven to be such an immensely charismatic, easily likable, and effortlessly charming star in a variety of media, I always wondered why no one ever thought to cast him as a romantic lead…
Posted on February 1, 2005 by Michael Dequina
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER’S THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
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Year Released: 2004 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 127 minutes |
IN THEATERS! It’s doubtful that this “Phantom” will convert many experiencing Lloyd Webber’s grand opus for the first time “Phans”…
Posted on December 22, 2004 by Michael Dequina
LAKSHYA
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  Year Released: 2004 MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 127 minutes |
A LOOK TOWARDS BOLLYWOOD! While this film is further confirmation as to what an adept technical craftsman Farhan Akthar is, the “lakshya” for his next film should be to rediscover the consistent smarts and soulfulness that made his debut such a memorable and distinctive work…
Posted on September 15, 2004 by Michael Dequina
MAIN PREM KI DIWANI HOON (I WILL LOVE HIM TIL THE END OF TIME)
In a rather strange move, the one musical number in which Roshan is given the most to do has since been cut from the film and appears on the DVD only as a separate special feature…
Posted on August 31, 2004 by Michael Dequina
CHALTE CHALTE (WALK ALONG)
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Year Released: 2003 MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 100 minutes |
While moviegoers in the United States eagerly anticipated big-budget sequels and vehicles for Hollywood megastars such as Jim Carrey and Harrison Ford–okay, not so much Ford–this summer, one of the hottest tickets in India was “Chalte Chalte (Walk Along),” starring reigning Bollywood king Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukerji, a superstar in her own right…
Posted on August 26, 2004 by Michael Dequina
KAL HO NAA HO (TOMORROW MAY NEVER COME)
Lest anyone get the wrong impression, however, this is a classic masala film experience through and through…
Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Dequina
KILL BILL VOL. 1
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Year Released: 2003 MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 110 minutes |
IN THEATERS! “Kill Bill” is probably the film Quentin Tarantino was born to make. The film finds the long-in-hibernation writer-director at his most fiercely cinematic yet, being more giddily creative with the camera and overall visual style…
Posted on October 11, 2003 by Michael Dequina
BAD BOYS II
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Year Released: 2003 MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 127 minutes |
ANOTHER VIEW! After the beating he took for his last film, the would-be Oscar bait epic “Pearl Harbor,” “BBII” plays like one huge “fuck you” to his critics by giving them all that they expect from him to the nth degree…
Posted on July 21, 2003 by Michael Dequina
FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY
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  Year Released: 2003 MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 90 minutes |
IN THEATERS! there’s no use in making sense of a film that takes place in some weird parallel realm where the only solution to a conflict between two guys is to engage in a weird hovercraft/ball/laundry basket duel…
Posted on June 30, 2003 by Michael Dequina