Go,See,Talk resumes their Double Take Review series with the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to headlining status in Jee-woon Kim’s small town shoot em up The Last Stand. Today Marc Ciafardini and Andrew Crump chime in on what works and what doesn’t in the latest from The Governator and American film debut of of Korean director Jee-woon Kim. Take 1 – Marc Ciafardini: When the son of a drug cartel baron breaks out of a US prison and does a Cannonball run for the Mexico border, there’s only one man who can stop him. Yes, it sounds as trite as any 80’s actioner or B-Movie from that era, but it’s a Schwarzenegger vehicle…
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G-S-T Review…Mama
Seeing those four dreamy and all encompassing words “Once Upon A Time” at the start of any story is a dead give away that what you are about to see is a fairy tale. Translation: not real. But what else does it mean? Is that meant to keep kids (or adults) from being scared? Or is this the only way to make us buy what the story is selling? Not sure but this has all the familiar hallmarks of a fairy tale. This isn’t Little Red Riding Hood and this sure ain’t kids stuff. Mama calls back to the darker Grimm fairy tales and, as per all the advertising, is in the vein of Pan’s…
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G-S-T Review…LUV
Sheldon Candis’ greatest coup in directing LUV, his debut feature, could well be securing rapper-turned-all-around-entertainer Common as his leading man. Common only started making moves in the acting world in the early 2000s before landing roles in Smokin’ Aces and American Gangster in 2007, but he’s been writing rhymes about manhood and the value of family since 1992; combining that background with his natural, easy charisma, he feels like a natural fit for a story about a young boy learning life lessons from his uncle over the course of a single day in inner city Baltimore. When Common speaks, he speaks with authority. Were we in Michael Rainey Jr.’s place,…