by Guest Contributor Jehanzeb Dar, originally published at Islam on My Side

I really wanted to like this movie.
With its heartfelt message of optimism and living one’s life to the fullest, I thought “Yes Man” would be a film I could enjoy and appreciate after a week of exhaustive finals and papers. Yet it turns out […]

by Latoya Peterson

Last week, I picked up the new issue of Script Magazine looking for some information on script reviewers . However, what I found was Baz Luhrmann talking about the planning and writing of Australia.
The lengthy article describes the thought process involved in creating a script of epic scope, and reveals that Luhrmann wanted […]

by Guest Contributor SLB, originally published at PostBougie

I could never be a real militant. Because there’s no way a real militant would’ve sat through Baz Luhrmann’s latest epic, Australia, which clocks in at a superfluous 3+ hours, and dug it as much as I did. It’s a film rife with knee-jerk infuriation potential. It’s got […]

by Guest Contributor SLB, originally posted at Postbougie

I think if we’re all quite honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that the methods to approaching big-screen biopics are finite—especially biopics about musicians. In order for people’s lives to warrant the silver screen treatment in the first place, those lives have to possess extremes—a series of extenuating events […]

by Guest Contributor Joanna Eng

In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays a bitter old man who’s basically the only white person left in a run-down neighborhood somewhere in the Midwest. He (reluctantly, at first) gets to know his Hmong neighbors, and ends up getting intricately involved in their lives, as they deal with issues caused by […]

by Guest Contributor Ansel, originally published at Mediahacker
Editor’s Note: I watched the Quantum of Solace the weekend it opened. This is not unusual for me, as I watch all the Bond films and like them all for different reasons. However, I wasn’t planning to write specifically on Bond until longtime reader Ansel (now of the […]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García, also posted at The Instant Callback

You could say Slumdog Millionaire is too cute by half. But you can’t say it doesn’t do cute very well.
Adapted from the novel Q and A, Slumdog follows “uneducated” street kid Jamal (Dev Patel) through a Dickensian collision of money, love, poverty and hope […]

by Latoya Peterson
Today, I talked a bit about Vicky Cristina Barcelona and introduced the concept of the Bedchel Test. Here’s the original comic the test came from:

So, after rejoicing over how brilliant the test is in its simplicity, I started wondering - could we adapt the Bechdel test for race? And if so, […]

by Latoya Peterson

Have you ever watched a movie, and then wished you could have seen it from another character’s perspective?
That was the feeling I got while watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the most recent Woody Allen film that is actually quite enjoyable - as long as you don’t mind having two dimensional female characters and […]

by Latoya Peterson

Director Chan-Wook Park shocked the hell out of South Korean audiences in 2003, with his theatrical release Oldboy, the second film in the disturbing The Vengence trilogy.
Now, dear readers, I hate horror movies but I love psychological thrillers. Hence, I watched Oldboy. And while I really enjoyed the movie, it is […]

by Latoya Peterson

Well, look at what slipped under the radar.
In the midst of the election run up, the results, and the waves of discussion about proposition 8, Logo launched a movie based on their popular (yet mysteriously canceled) series Noah’s Arc.
The New York Press’ Armond White has a thought provoking review on the significance of […]

by Guest Contributor SLB, originally posted at PostBourgie

I know it’s a little late to be bringing up Lakeview Terrace. Typically, reviews for feature films appear in publications the week the film opens. But let’s be real here: despite its Week 1 box office triumph, Lakeview Terrace is the kind of film you wait a week […]

by Guest Contributor SLB, originally published at Post Bourgie
I’ve never seen The Color Purple in its entirety. Oh, I’ve seen snippets here and there—enough that, if strung together sequentially, I’d have nearly 7/8 of the film before me. I’m only disclosing this because I’m fairly certain that The Color Purple will be raised in criticism […]

by Guest Contributor Arturo R. García, originally published at The Instant Callback

So, you’re Thai directors Danny and Oxide Pang. You’ve got a shot at making a Hollywood remake of your debut hit, Bangkok Dangerous. How do you do it without subverting your original vision?
Simple: F!#k the original vision! This lumbering, hollow re-vamp takes the Pangs’ […]

by Special Correspondent Thea Lim

(spoilers inside) *
Contrary to the buzz, (and much to my dismay) Traitor is not a Bourne-esque spy thriller. My movie-watching companion (MWC) and I realised we’d been tricked into the theatre by some loose Bourne comparisons as soon as the opening credits came up. The camera pulled back to reveal […]