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Reviews
Absentia (2011)
Horrendously boring horror movie
This is a most awful and disappointing film. My girlfriend and I paid $4.99 to watch it based on its very respectable IMDb rating. The money would have been better spent on Addams Family reruns. I did not feel so much as a tinge of fear or suspense as I watched characters who were completely contrived engage in shallow and meaningless dialogue about nonsensical gobbledygook, all in the service of a plot that went absolutely nowhere and fell laughably short of the depth the screenwriters so desperately wanted to give it. I'm a fan of a many different horror genres, but the only genre this one belonged to is called "caca." Save yourself the trouble and go watch some Addams Family reruns instead.
Four Friends (1981)
Great flick
This movie is, yes, melodramatic, overdone, super-intense, and at times ridiculous. So what? It is a deep and touching exploration of human relationships that struggles to understand, from the very beginning of adulthood -- from the hopefulness of high school graduation to the emancipation of college graduation -- what it is that makes us individuals. And it takes us to a very disturbing conclusion that all of us -- idealists and cynics -- have to resolve: Life's hard. Real hard. Jodi Thelen is particularly effective as the Isadora Duncan-like free spirit who wants so badly to be taken seriously but can't seem to find an audience that really matters. And Craig Wasson plays a tender soul who clings to dear sanity as the craziness of the '60s wreaks havoc with his mind. See this movie; it reveals a great truth -- about relationships, about this country, about..... you.
What's Up, Doc? (1972)
Best comedy of the '70s
I first went to see "What's Up, Doc?" with my parents when I was, oh, 12 or 13 years old. As a family, we never had as much of an uproariously good time as we did at this movie (I saw my father cry for the first time -- tears born of uncontrolled laughter). Ryan O'Neal, as the poker-faced, straight-laced, hen-pecked, scholarly authority on rocks and musicality plays the perfect straight man to Barbra Streisand's wandering, wise-cracking, lustful, but solidly grounded Daddy's Little Girl with the voice of an angel. Madeline Kahn plays the overbearing fiancee whose obsessive organizational skills explain why even O'Neal is so irresistibly taken with Streisand. These three characters -- and the four identical suitcases that set them on the wackiest adventure of their lives -- make for the funniest screwball comedy of the second half of the 20th Century (sharing that title with "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"). Be sure to listen, in one of the best scenes of the film early on, to the taxi driver who chants after O'Neal: "Yes, Eunice." It's pure gold. By the way, I bought the movie for my parents a couple of years ago for their anniversary. There could not have been a better gift. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie.