5 Razors

Nowhere Man

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Nowhere Man – The Complete Series
  • tv.com: link

“My name is Thomas Veil, or at least it was.  I’m a photographer, I had it all: a wife – Alyson, friends, a career.  And in one moment it was all taken away, all because of a single photograph.  I have it.  They want it.  And they will do anything to get the negative.  I’m keeping this diary as proof that these events are real.  I know they are… They have to be.”

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In the fall of 1995 those words were first spoken as a legion of small but vocal supporters tuned into what was to be one of the best television shows ever made.  Nowhere Man follows photographer Thomas Veil who loses his entire life all in the blink of an eye for reasons he can’t even begin to understand.

In much the same way The Prisoner (check out that review here) dealt with the individual versus society Nowhere Man became a show about a man alone in the world unable to trust anyone or anything even perhaps his own sanity.  A man who clings to his identity and individuality, something that belongs to him and no one else, and refuses to give in and turn over the negatives losing that last true part of himself and admitting defeat to “them”.

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A History of Violence

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: A History of Violence
  • IMDb: link

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A History of Violence is only 96 minutes long and everything you need to know about the film can be found in that amount of time.  It’s a streamlined and stripped down story that doesn’t waste a single frame or a single performance.  And for its short running time it is amazingly effective, disturbing, distressing, and haunting.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife Edie (Mario Bello) own a diner in a sleepy little town of Millbrook, Indiana.  They are raising a son (Ashton Holmes) who is tortured by bullies but has been taught to turn the other cheek, and a young daughter (Heidi Hayes).  Their life seems idyllic until a pair of thugs attempt to rob the diner and kill the witnesses.  Tom kills both men with brutal efficiency that is unusual in a diner owner of a sleepy town.

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Spielberg’s Best Film in 12 Years

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Munich
  • IMDB: link

munich-posterStephen Spielberg‘s Munich is a personal story that is deeply moving and emotionally challenging to the viewer.  Hard questions are asked about the nature of revenge, assassination, and the right of a people to protect themselves through any means necessary.  Not since Schindler’s List has Spielberg taken on such a momentous undertaking that produced such extraordinary results.  This is his best film in over a decade and, it can be argued, the best film of his entire career.  In Munich Spielberg becomes the storyteller of a very personal story of pain, loss, vengeance, betrayal, murder, and death.  Munich is tremendous filmmaking and one of the best movies of the year.

The film begins with the abduction and murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.  Munich tells the story of the fallout of this tragedy as Avner (Eric Bana), a Mossad officer and son of a hero, is chosen by the Israeli Prime Minister (Lynn Cohen) to lead a team and hunt down and kill all 11 of the terrorists responsible.  Avner accept the assignment and leaves his pregnant wife; he travels to Europe with his team to track down and assassinate the members of Black September.

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Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
  • IMDB: link

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“This isn’t good cop / bad cop.
This is fag and New Yorker.”
Any movie that contains an argument over the phone about why someone has urinated on a dead body he finds in his hotel room shower deserves some attention.  Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is one of the most entertaining movies of the year.  Part Hollywood satire and part dime-store novel this is great fun with terrific performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer.  Simply put folks, this is the best comedy of 2005.

Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a small time thief who stumbles into an audition for a detective show while fleeing from the police.  Whisked away to Hollywood Harry meets Perry (Val Kilmer) a gay detective who is the consultant to the show.  At a party Harry also runs into Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan) the girl who got away so many years ago.

So far sounds like a pretty normal film right?  Well here’s where things start to get interesting.  Larry takes Harry on a stakeout to teach him more about detective work, but unfortunately they run into a car with a dead body.  For reasons to difficult to describe here the two abandon the body only for Larry to find it in his hotel room shower early the next morning.

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Good Night = Great Movie

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Good Night, and Good Luck
  • IMDb: link

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George Clooney has this natural ability to act with such effortlessness; as a director he has taken this same gift and now has made a movie that flows so easily, moves so naturally, that it really is a wonder.  There are still films coming out this holiday season that I have yet to see; I’m not quite prepared to call this the best movie of 2005, but I will say that it is the most important film of the year.

After WWII in the https: 40’s and early 50’s America was attacked by the threat of Communism.  One man made it his life mission to root out all Communists and sympathizers out of the government and the media (film, television, and radio).  The country was trapped in a never ending witch hunt where only the inference or gossip was enough to bring you before the self appointed savior of our country, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

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