December 2015

Hot Girls Wanted

  • Title: Hot Girls Wanted
  • IMDb: link

Hot Girls WantedDirected by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus, Hot Girls Wanted takes a look at the growing online amateur porn industry by taking us into the house of a small group of Internet porn newbies (few of whom will still be working in the industry by the end of the documentary). The directors succeed in getting a firsthand experience of the industry which tosses out young women at a rate, even once introduced into the industry, our starlets don’t comprehend.

Meant to be a shocking tell-all, Hot Girls Wanted is only partially successful (mainly because of how willing the young women all are to agree to and rationalize away any dehumanizing activity as long as it is 1. on camera and 2. pays the bills). The complicity to their actions undercuts the documentary’s message just as strongly as the documentarians taking further advantage of each of the women profiled for the purpose of their movie.

However, money is only half of the equation. A better film would dive deeper into the yearning for celebrity each girl is willing to go down an increasingly dark and fetishized path to achieve.

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Doctor Who – The Husbands of River Song

  • Title: Doctor Who – The Husbands of River Song
  • wiki: link

Doctor Who - The Husbands of River Song

River Song (Alex Kingston) returns for the latest Doctor Who Christmas special in a story than connects to the events of “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” (her character’s first appearance) with what is likely the character’s final appearance on the show. The set-up of River having not yet met the The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) allows “The Husbands of River Song” to use a running gag of allowing the pair to travel together without River knowing the identity of the man she’s mistaken for a surgeon whose help she needs to remove a diamond from the head of her cyborg husband (Greg Davies). Allowing The Doctor to see his wife in an entirely new light, the episode stretches the gag well past its breaking point but does allow for an enjoyable payoff before all is said and done.

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Youth

  • Title: Youth
  • IMDb: link

YouthWriter/director Paolo Sorrentino‘s Youth is the kind of ensemble dramedy you will either buy into immediately or struggle to make any connection to throughout its two-hour running time. My experience with the film falls into the later category. Sorrentino’s script gives us an odd collection of characters at an otherworldly resort in the Swiss Alps. The main storylines revolve around retired composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and his relationships to his best friend filmmaker Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) and Fred’s daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz).

Sorrentino’s film isn’t lacking for either on-screen talent or style. Although not in the category of their best performances, the ensemble plays well off one another. And the film looks terrific but, since we are viewing events through an unreliable protagonist in Frank, its unclear how much of the magic is actually present in the odd resort and how much (such as his hallucinations) are entirely figments of his imagination. I suppose, like most of the movie’s superflous plot and characters, it doesn’t really matter.

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Concussion

  • Title: Concussion
  • IMDb: link

ConcussionAdapting Jeanne Marie Laskas’ 2009 GQ article, Concussion delivers the film the NFL doesn’t want you to see this Christmas. Beginning with Nigerian-American forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu‘s (Will Smith) autopsy of former Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster (David Morse) which will create a new category of degenerative disease known as CTE, writer/director Peter Landesman‘s film focuses more on the effect of Omalu’s work as the work itself.

Fighting opposition from his own superiors (Mike O’Malley), intense backlash from fans, anger from current players, pressure from the government, and a campaign of organized disinformation by the NFL that the Republicans usually reserve for discrediting Global Warming, will force the doctor to fight for the truth every step of the way.

Concussion is an interesting, if a little straightforward and simplistic, look at Omalu. Smith proves he still has some acting chops in his best role in the last couple of years. Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw lead a supporting cast as the few friends Omalu relies on while taking on the NFL.

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