2008 / 136 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Bruce Wayne is a pussy.

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2008 / 112 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

I may not love Judd Apatow as much as a lot of people but I’ve got to admire his pretty much single-handed revitalization of the modern comedy. His “40 Year Old Virgin” is an inspired bit of art, a movie with heart and soul that manages to keep its romantic comedy leanings fresh and provocative…and its raunchy moments are truly ingenious. “Knocked Up” mined the same formula and stumbled a bit, though it was overall pretty good (it lacks “40 Year Old”’s replay value, however). Apatow and his collaborators (especially the underrated Jake Kasdan who made one of my favorite films of the 90’s with “The Zero Effect” before taking a completely different career track with “Orange County”) then bounced back with “Walk Hard”, a rather inspired parody of the musical biopic genre (scenes like the destruction of the sink were simply dead-on). I didn’t see “Superbad”, mostly because the teenagers-trying-to-score genre is beyond played out for me, but I hear mostly good things. Aside from “Virgin”, each of these movies arrived in theaters bearing the Apatow seal of approval within just one year. Even with some quibbles about their quality (though none of the ones I have seen are less than three fist efforts) I have to admit this is an extraordinary feat for one group of talented people: Apatow, Seth Rogen, Bill Hader and Jonah Hill.

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2008 / 91 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Though it may sound ridiculous, I believe that Sylvester Stallone has saved our country as much as a muscular man who makes movies possibly can…not just once, but twice. I cite “Rocky” as the first example of this bizarre phenomenon. The 70’s were a huge bummer for our country. Vietnam raged on and on, Watergate had taken that fine, Frank Capra dream of democracy and pissed right in its eye, and the repercussions of the free love 60’s were beginning to set in. The 30’s sucked too, but at least Hollywood was cranking out a steady stream of giddy musicals and fun screwball comedies to distract everyone. In the 70’s, Hollywood was cranking out movies like “The Godfather”, “Chinatown”, “All the President’s Men”, “Taxi Driver” and “Network”, all great films but none of them put a spring in one’s step and a smile on one’s face. Even the box office hits of the time were rather depressing: “The Exorcist” and “Jaws” were both about people getting possessed or eaten. But then came “Rocky”, to change all that. “Rocky” was the story of a big, dumb palooka who used his pluck and determination to make his dreams come true. It was a huge hit, lines around the block, and people were happy again. They were inspired. They could laugh and love all over again. Of course, all this happiness led to the Disco movement, but even a wonder drug can have some unsavory side effects.

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2007 / 122 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

A windswept desert. A pool of blood spreading toward a man’s shoes. A shadow beneath a door frame. A relentless dog swimming through a raging river. These are just some of the many haunting images indelibly burned into my brain after my first viewing of “No Country for Old Men”. But I could have listed dozens more (like the sight of a man walking through a pharmacy while a car explodes in the background).

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2007 / 117 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

There have been many great actor/director collaborative teams throughout the course of cinema history. The most respected, of course, is probably the teaming of Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese though James Stewart and Frank Capra are also a pretty tough act to beat. John Woo and Chow Yun Fat were a good team as well and Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese have a pretty solid track record thus far (Scorsese seems more devoted to actors than most people are toward their spouses). Why do these actor/director combos work so well? I suspect the answer is simply that the two men in question have similar creative sensibilities. They’re interested in the same sorts of material, understand what the other needs to do an excellent job, and, most importantly, don’t manage to completely piss one another off. None of these collaborators, however, have shit on Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. They may never have done a movie as brilliant as “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Goodfellas” but at least they don’t have a “New York, New York” in their resume.

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2007 / 113 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Adapting a book into a movie, I’d imagine, is a tricky business. Not as tricky as fighting sharks for a living or circumcising grizzly bears, but still relatively tricky. You have to take the best parts of a book and realize them on screen while sacrificing the things that only work in literary form (i.e. the thoughts and interior monologues of characters, philosophical musings, and things so expensive that showing them would cost more than the average American corporation makes in a year). It’s a precarious tightrope, and a lot of filmmakers that try to walk it inevitably fall to their doom. You have to win new fans to the film (because, let’s face it, only losers and gay people read) without alienating the the schmucks and fags that read the original book. You have to capture the scope and point of the novel, and put its most memorable bits up on the big screen, without getting bogged down in those little nuances and intricacies that make reading such a delight. If you can manage to bring those little intricacies up to the screen (like the makers of “High Fidelity”), hey, so much the better. But most filmmakers either don’t bother to try or fail miserably.

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2007 / 112 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Sometimes it’s hard to divorce the content of a movie from the experience of actually seeing it, but I shall try nonetheless. I must say, without hyperbole, that seeing “Beowulf” on an IMAX screen and in 3-D was flat-out one of the best cinematic experiences of my entire life. Considering how many movies I’ve actually seen, I think you can understand what bold praise that is. The 3-D presentation of this movie is nothing short of awesome and, if you have any inkling toward seeing this movie, you simply owe it to yourself to see it in 3-D and on the biggest possible screen. That being said, the question remains: is “Beowulf” a good movie?

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1980 / 219 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

If you’re wondering how the experimental, edgy films of the Seventies could give way to the commercial, adolescent-friendly, cuddly films of the Eighties, you really need look no further than “Heaven’s Gate”. “Heaven’s Gate” is the film that took independent-minded, edgy, adult cinematic fare to its ultimate, expensive conclusion. If that sounds like a good thing, well, it is…kinda.

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1980 / 111 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Much like “The Exorcist” and “Jaws”, “National Lampoon’s Animal House” was a box-office juggernaut whose appeal was so simple that it inspired a platoon of lame knock-offs. Hollywood producers and execs, eager to exploit any success, decided that the public wanted demons and ravenous fish, and made boatloads of movies that cheapened the originals by pandering to their audience’s most basic interests and ripping off as many elements of the successful films as possible. With “Animal House”, those same producers seemed to decide that all it took to make a hit comedy were tits and men without scruples. A plethora of soulless, hollow, T&A-filled dreck like “Porky’s” (that movie sucks, I don’t care what anyone says), “Private School” and “Screwballs” followed. Miraculously, despite all these horrible knock-offs, “Animal House” has retained its sterling reputation and is a movie that is still beloved, admired, referenced and quoted to death to this very day.

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2007 / 86 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

As soon as I heard there was a movie coming out called “Shoot ‘Em Up”, I was intrigued. When I learned that it starred Clive Owen, the modern king of bad-assery after “Sin City”, I became more excited. When I discovered that Clive was going up against a villain played by Paul Giamatti, an actor who is never ever boring, my excitement grew. When I saw the trailer, full of car chases, explosions and plenty of bullets flying around, I put it on my must-see list. Then I promptly forgot all about its existence…until I saw an ad for it and learned that it would be released this past weekend. (A violent, fun-filled action movie AND a western released on the same weekend…the movie gods have officially smiled down on me.) I was unable to see it this weekend (you try dragging your fiancee to a film entitled “Shoot ‘Em Up”) but I DID get in there as soon as I was able.

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