REVIEW: Artifact [2013]

“We put everything on black. And we rolled the dice.” Full disclosure on my feelings about Thirty Seconds to Mars: I’m a huge fan. When “Capricorn (A Brand New Name)” hit the radio waves, I was sold—not yet aware Jared Leto was the frontman or that the music wasn’t just another lame attempt by an actor to delve into another industry he/she knew nothing about. I torrented the disc, played it heavily on my iPod, and eventually purchased it as my way of saying they earned my support. I attended…

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REVIEW: Crave [2013]

“Forgive me for the things I’ve done and the things I’ve yet to do” When you take a look at Charles de Lauzirika‘s filmography to see the myriad behind the scenes featurettes and home video productions he’s accomplished for the likes of Ridley Scott, David Lynch, and Mark Romanek, it’s no surprise that his directoral debut Crave would prove as dark as it does. Co-written by Robert Lawton, the story follows an increasingly deranged, freelance crime scene photographer as the rage-fueled fantasies in his head begin to crawl out into…

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REVIEW: Shesh peamim [S#x Acts] [2013]

“I think I’ve heard of you already” Director Jonathan Gurfinkel‘s debut feature Shesh peamim [S#x Acts] deals with the important topic of teenage sexual abuse in a way that better make you uncomfortable by its end. Told in six acts with escalating encounters between transfer student Gili (Sivan Levy) and the popular group of boys she hopes to infiltrate in order to not be labeled “the weird girl” at yet another school, we watch as infatuation evolves into sexual favors until the moral gray area at play can no longer…

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REVIEW: Night Train to Lisbon [2013]

“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution is a duty” Sometimes a well-written story is all you truly need to make a successful film and I believe author Pascal Mercier‘s novel Night Train to Lisbon provides one. Adapted by Greg Latter and Ulrich Herrmann with Bille August as director, the cinematic version of this look back at romance in a time of revolution unfolds with its melodic Annette Focks score as though we’re sitting over a cup of tea across from each character as they tell their part in the mystery…

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REVIEW: Swerve [2012]

“I guess honesty is one of my weak points” After a long journey dating back to 2010, director Craig Lahiff finally has his Australian crime thriller Swerve arriving in American theaters. It took a year to complete before debuting at the Melbourne International Film Festival, another until hitting multiplexes in its native country, and one more to piggyback on third lead Jason Clarke’s rising star here. Similar to many of its ilk you’ve probably seen before, the work itself isn’t too bad if you allow yourself to enjoy the ride…

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REVIEW: The Citizen [2013]

“To reach your dreams, plant your good deeds” I’ll say one thing about The Citizen: writer/director Sam Kadi had his heart in the right place. He along with co-writers Samir Younis and Jazmen Darnell Brown set out to tell a story about what it was like to live in America as a person with brown skin after 9/11 and they used true events to accomplish the task. The problem, however, is that they used too many because life for Ibrahim Jarrah (Khaled Nabawy) abides by the “if it rains, it…

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REVIEW: Frozen [2013]

“Conceal it. Don’t feel it.” Over half a century in the making, Disney’s adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen has finally made it to the big screen. It was 1943 when Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn decided to co-create a live-action/animation hybridized biography of the Danish author—an idea that stalled due to their inability to bring the aforementioned fairy tale and The Little Mermaid to life. While Disney of course figured out the latter in 1989, the former continuously proved troublesome as it failed to come together in…

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REVIEW: Get a Horse! [2013]

“Give me back my phone!” I guess it might be time for me to revisit some of the old Mickey Mouse cartoons from yesteryear, but I’m not so sure I want to. Especially if Lauren MacMullan‘s animated homage created in part for the iconic character’s 85th anniversary Get a Horse! is truly on point as far as its subject matter goes. Don’t get me wrong, though, the short does build into a rip-roaring, slapstick escapade that uses its gimmick to full potential without wearing itself out. It’s just the first…

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REVIEW: The Punk Singer [2013]

“It’s all about screaming what’s unspoken” When Kathleen Hanna is shown sitting at her home discussing her exit from fronting Le Tigre, she says, “I felt I had said everything I wanted to say”. It’s the kind of sentiment that makes you truly respect an artist, knowing they weren’t in it for the money or the fame. They used their art as a platform to share their ideals and try to change an injustice in the world. And while we quickly discover this reason was in fact a lie—The Punk…

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REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire [2013]

“Remember who the real enemy is” The aspect author Suzanne Collins included in Catching Fire that was more or less absent in The Hunger Games can be summed up with the above quote. While Panem’s dystopia provided a common antagonist for the surviving twelve districts of a revolution their Capital won seventy-four years previous, the series’ first installment relied almost exclusively upon whether its heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) would survive her adversaries in the titular games. Yes, the political unrest was at the constructed mythology’s back, but the ultimate…

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Don’t let *blank expletive blank* affect your inner calm … Babel’s Amy Tan

As Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s Laurie Dean Torrell went through her thank yous before Artistic Director Barbara Cole’s introduction of the night’s speaker, she gave us a statistic that posited how ticket sales for the event only fulfilled about a third of the costs incurred to produce it. While I’m sure it was an accurate breakdown, I couldn’t help look around at the packed lower level of Kleinhans Music Hall and remember how far Babel has grown since the less than one thousand people who packed into Babeville’s Asbury Hall…

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