D.C. MOVIE GUYS

Movie Reviews for Washington D.C. and Denver, CO
by Bill Henry, Joe Barber and Friends

Secret Things

January 30th, 2004

Secret Things

Directed by Jean-Claude Brasseur

Opening exclusively at the E Street Cinema 1/30/2004

2.5 *

Jean-Claude Brisseau’s erotic melodrama Choses Secretes (Secret Things) may have many charms, but subtlety is not among them. The movie, playing exclusively at Washington, D.C.’s new E Street Cinema, is itself hardly anything new, but however many times we have seen such themes played out, it was probably with fewer lesbian masturbation sequences (for the record, that is not a complaint).

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You Got Served

January 30th, 2004

You Got Served

Directed by Christopher B. Stokes

Punking out audiences nationwide 1/30/2004

1 *

At one point during the purgatorial screening of You Got Served, a character advised some disappointed dancers that his father always told him that, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I waited around for the end credits, but did not see a mention of a character named F.W. Nietzsche, Jr. However, with little else to think about during this inept dance competition exploitation flick, I was wondering if watching this movie would make me stronger. Having survived the first wave of break dancing movies in the ‘80s, I suspect that these mind-numbing experiences ripped out of my life in 90-minute chunks may not kill me, but all they really do is make me more miserable. If they made me stronger, I would be able to bench press a Buick by now.

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The Big Bounce

January 30th, 2004

The Big Bounce

Directed by George Armitage

Bounding nationwide 1/30/2004

2 *

When a few hits are produced from any author’s work, the push is on in Hollywood to acquire more of his work and get film versions made while the heat is still on. Combined with Hollywood’s current penchant for remaking just about everything one can imagine and the result is The Big Bounce, a remake of an old Ryan O’Neal (pre-Love Story) movie from the late ‘60s based on an Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight) crime novel.

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The Company

January 23rd, 2004

The Company

Directed by Robert Altman

At the barre in expanding numbers 1/23/2004

1.5 *

In his life-long and ongoing effort to subvert his film career, director Robert Altman has stayed true to pattern by following the relatively successful Gosford Park with The Company, an inert examination of backstage at the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago with little to recommend save some terrific dance sequences. Long after you will have forgotten everything else about the movie, these bits remain suspended like marshmallows within The Company’s insignificant jello plot. The movie most resembles Pret-a-Porter (the movie which followed The Player and Short Cuts—two of Altman’s best—was also the movie that revealed that people in the world of fashion are superficial and that pretty people walking around nude can be dull).

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Touching the Void

January 23rd, 2004

Touching the Void

Directed by Kevin Macdonald

Ascending in limited venues 1/23/2004

3.5 *

It is only January and rising up from amidst the cinematic muck and mire of the various Torques, Pets, and Pollys is a movie so harrowing and awe-inspiring that one doubts that its rival will be seen over the year’s remaining eleven months. More amazingly, the story told in Touching the Void is true.

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