Stuff I've Seen

Reviews based on a 5 item rating.

TERRI

Terri is an overweight fifteen-year-old who is consistently late to appointments, is falling behind at school and wears pajamas every day. His recent behavior has raised a few red flags in the eyes of his loquacious principal.

Common teen-angst stuff made uncommon by an eccentric plot that favors reality over quirkiness. Jacob Wysocki and John C. Reilly shine as a pair of guileless characters who elicit both mockery and compassion.

SUPER

When his wife is swooped away by a sleazy drug dealer, everyman Frank transforms himself into superhero dubbed the Crimson Bolt to win her back.

Part farce, part sick joke, Super contains just enough abhorrent humor and out-of-nowhere violence to achieve cult status.

Kudos to Rainn Wilson for beating a man with a wrench for butting in line
and to Ellen Page for speaking the line, “It's all gooshy,” while fondling her
crotch.

BUCK

Imagine Kristin Scott Thomas and Scarlett Johansson gushing over a herbivorous quadruped at the behest of Robert Redford. Now replace all those people with someone who knows what the hell they’re doing and you have Buck, a documentary about a real life horse-whisperer who abstains

the violence he saw as a child in favor of communicating with the animals through awareness and affectability.

As a documentary, it’s a bit disjointed, however, where the movie succeeds is in its ability to make us care for its central character. A small tale that
evokes big emotions.

TABLOID

A documentary on a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary before paying $150,000 to clone her favorite pitbull.

A hilariously strange portrait of an obsessive, sexually confused woman. The movie is guilty ofpatronizing its subject, however, she is just nutty enough not to care.

Errol Morris is the only filmmaker capable of making a “talking head” \
documentary entertaining.

VIVA RIVA

A small time crook hopes to score big at the expense of a vicious gangster in Viva Riva, a new actioner from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thrill-less thriller derivative of the banal crap that comes out of Hollywood every weekend. Most critics seem unwilling to bitch-slap the film due to its third world roots. If made in America, it would be helmed by Tony Scott.