Speed Racer
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Watching “Speed Racer” is like freebasing Pixy Stix. It’s like inserting Skittles directly under your eyelids (I can TASTE the rainbow!). It’s like diving, Scrooge McDuck-style, into a pool full of neon crayons. It’s like the nightmare you had after a three-day Red Bull bender. It’s like being beaten to death with a rolled-up blacklight poster. It’s like being locked in a glass cell that is slowly filling with gummi bears. Read more »
The Happening
Film review by: Witney Seibold
This is M. Night Shyamalan’s “Happening,” and it freaks me out. Yuk yuk. Read more »
Nancy Drew
Film review by: Witney Seibold
I didn’t read Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew books when I was a kid, but I did take in a few of the Hardy Boys’ adventures. From what I gather, even at the time the mid 1930s), the Boys and Drew were considered almost laughably wholesome in their demeanor. This seems to be the only element director Andrew Fleming and his co-screenwriter Tiffany Paulsen have adapted in tact for their 2007 film version of Nancy Drew.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Marcus Brody is dead. Dad is dead. The Nazi regime has long since fallen, and America has fallen into the square cleanliness of the repressive 1950s. The red scare is in full swing, and nuclear tests are the word of the day. This is a very different world in which we’re used to seeing Indiana Jones Read more »
The Fall
Film review by: Witney Seibold
In 2000, music video director Tarsem Singh made an underrated film called “The Cell.” Read more »
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Film review by: Witney Seibold
In the last Narnia movie, Susan Pevensie (Anna Popplewell) left behind a magical horn that, when blown, would summon her and her three siblings, previously kings and queens of Narnia, to the aid of the blower. Read more »
The Band’s Visit
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Many critics complained that Eran Kolirin’s “The Band’s Visit” was considered ineligible for the 2007 Academy Awards. It’s a film about Egyptians in Israel, but neither the Egyptians nor the Israelis speak the others’ native language, so the bulk of the film is in their common language of English. According to the rules, that’s not foreign language enough. Would it have won the Academy Award had it been eligible? Perhaps. It is very good little film.
Smart People
Film review by: Witney Seibold
The intended conceit of Noam Murro’s “Smart People” is that no matter how intelligent and hoity-toity you are, your emotional life may still be a shambles. In execution, however, the question on the audience’s mind may be close to “why are these so-called smart people so stupid?” Read more »
Iron Man
Film review by: Witney Seibold
“Iron Man” is probably the most solid summer blockbuster I have ever seen. Read more »
When Witney Seibold was about 10 years old, he got in trouble for spitting on a new car. Witney wants his teachers and classmates to know that he was not a mean-spirited or unhappy child, and only did this to make his fellow classmates laugh. His classmates were, you see all merely pretending to spit on the line of new cars they were walking by, and Witney thought he could do them one better by actually doing it.
When thinking back on it, he realizes that some poor schmo working at the new car lot would have had to clean his spit off of the car. He apologizes to his classmates (who probably were more shocked than amused), his teacher (who was certainly not at all amused), and especially the unseen car lot attendant, armed with the Windex and paper towels, who was probably cursing his job as he had to lean over and touch a stranger’s saliva. I’m very sorry.
