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Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
Reviews
Saw V
The previous entries have bled dry every variation on tormenting a victim
By
TOM MEEK
|
October 31, 2008
SAW V
" alt="photo of 'SAW V'">
1.5
Stars
Set designer David Hackl takes charge of this gore series, but what’s left? The previous four entries have bled dry every possible variation on graphically tormenting a hapless victim. Worse, the original killer, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), and his sidekick, Amanda (Shawnee Smith), bit it in the third installment. To keep the grim gamesman in the mix, much of
Saw V
— like
Saw IV
— consists of flashbacks putting together the pieces of Jigsaw’s motives (he sees his as a judgment of sinners: if they live, they’re rehabilitated, if not, then society is minus one less miscreant) and referring to the anointing of his new protégé (which came at the end of
Saw IV,
but I won’t divulge). As always, several unluckies get to squirm through a maze of death; meanwhile, a rogue FBI agent (Scott Patterson) tries to make sense of it all. But the real hack work here is behind the camera. Would you believe that a
Saw VI
is in the works?
88 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Suburbs
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,
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,
Review: Sunshine Cleaning
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Review: The Last House on the Left (2009)
Critics and audiences reviled Wes Craven's 1972 original, but its raw power gave it an enduring, endearing legacy.
Review: Surrogates
Some day in the future — or is it right now? — people will be replaced by surrogate robots, superhuman automatons who live out big-screen fantasies while their hosts, with their greasy hair and bad skin, sit back in wired-up La-Z-Boys.
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What lifts this tasty little dramedy above Sundance mediocrity is a pathos that overcomes all the "quirky" dysfunctional contrivance.
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Based on the book by Edmonde Charles-Roux, Anne Fontaine's soaper of a bio-pic traces the fashion icon's life before the perfume and the bouclé suits.
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As a kid, I was absurdly unpicky about my entertainment: shoddy '80s anime , reruns of This Old House , staring cross-eyed at our basement's pegboard wall to achieve a Magic Eye 3-D effect — these were all totally acceptable ways of whiling away an afternoon.
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It's complicated, and so are my feelings about Nancy Meyer's predictable and overlong boomer-bait rom-com.
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Lovers of the great Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni have cause to rejoice with this new-print revival of his best pre- L’avventura feature.
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The Informant! opens with a segment that sounds as if it had been culled from Food, Inc.
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One can only imagine writer/director Howard McCain on vacation at a Norwegian fjord and gazing up into the starry night and hatching this brilliant idea: Beowulf from Outer Space.
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Eating fish is great for you — but it's a different story for the poor fish.
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[
02/16
]
Third Annual Providence Children's Film Festival
@ Cable Car Cinema
[
02/16
]
"Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings
@ Bert Gallery
[
02/16
]
Mary Poppins
@ Providence Performing Arts Center
ARTICLES BY TOM MEEK
REVIEW: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING
| January 24, 2012
The Underworld series got long in the tooth early, but here, in the fourth installment (directed by Swede Måns Mårlind), it grows new fangs.
REVIEW: JOYFUL NOISE
| January 10, 2012
There's not much joy but there's plenty of noise of the rafter-rocking gospel singing variety in Tony Graff's musical dramedy.
REVIEW: IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY
| January 05, 2012
Jolie has loosely reworked the story of Romeo and Juliet in an infamous setting familiar from CNN but here seen from the inside.
REVIEW: ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED
| December 13, 2011
For 50 years, Alvin and the Chipmunks have been driving parents nuts with their helium-infused banter and shrill bastardizations of pop music.
REVIEW: TRESPASS
| October 13, 2011
If Rod Lurie's errant remake of Straw Dogs didn't tickle your morbid fear of home invasion, then perhaps the latest from Joel Schumacher ( Falling Down ) might do the job.
See all articles by:
TOM MEEK
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