THE CHUMSCRUBBER (2005)

Directed By: Arie Posen 

Story By: Arie Posen and Zac Stanford 

Written By: Zac Stanford

Cinematography: Lawrence Sher 

Editor: William Scharf And Arthur Schmidt 

Cast: Jamie Bell, Camilla Belle, Justin Chatwin, Lou Taylor Pucci, Rory Culkin, Glenn Close, Carrie Anne Moss, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs, Lauren Holly, Caroline Goodall, William Fichtner, John Heard, Allison Janney, Rita Wilson 

a dark comedy about the lives of people who live in upper-class suburbia. It all begins when Dean Stiffle finds the body of his friend, Troy. He doesn’t bother telling any of the adults because he knows they won’t care. Everyone in town is too self-consumed to worry about anything else than themselves. And everybody is on some form of drug just to get themselves through the day. After Troy’s death, local drug dealers at the school run out of their stash. They convince Dean to get Troy’s stash or they are going to kill his brother that they kidnapped, but they grabbed the wrong kid.


This show is an intriguing failure that seems to be some sort of statement or satire on disaffected teens coming apart at the seams in suburbia after tranquilizing themselves on recreational drugs for so long that they seem to be scared of their own emotions. I wish the film played and explored more of what I just described.

Instead, the film seems more interested in the adult characters, who are not as deep and as types. This only makes their stories seem melodramatic or the product of a soap opera. Which makes one wonder how the film got such a powerful cast for a film that feels more like a desperate Housewives spin-off

The film seems to shy away from too much depth to focus more on the quirks and offbeat comedy.

The film is all surface but tries too hard at times to seem deep almost like a pretty girl reading an intellectual book and you notice over weeks each time you see her she is on the same page as she only does it for the attention or seems smarter than she might actually be

The ending feels too. The end feels too clean cut which one could see if this was based on pre-existing material but as it is an original production, it could’ve been worked on a bit more. It feels too self-serving, trying to please an audience instead of going for emotional truth.

It ends up playing more like a studio version of an independent coming-of-age film. With the parents so busy with themselves, they never pay attention to their own kids, even after one commits suicide, which might be blatant science for attention and help or even subconscious ones.. though the adults seem to anodize themselves with Work and each other as a form of hiding.

The film tries to tighten it like video games and not feeling real trying to achieve a numbness or doing things so that they can feel something. Not fall into the same traps and behavior as their parents, though it seems they easily follow suit.

Has a good score which other than the cast seems to be the most accomplished thing about it.

Grade: C

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (1990)

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Directed By: Barbet Schroeder
Written By: Nicholas Kazan
Based on the book By: Alan Dershowitz
Cinematography By: Luciano Tovoli
Editor: Lee Percy 


Cast: Jeremy Irons, Ron Silver, Glenn Close, Annabella Sciorra, Uta Hagen, Christine Baranski, Julie Hagerty, Fisher Stevens, Jack Gilpin, Felicity Huffman, Bill Camp, Lisa Gay Hamilton 


Alan Dershowitz a brilliant professor of law is hired by wealthy socialite Claus von Bulow to attempt to overturn his two convictions for attempted murder of his extremely wealthy wife. Based on a true story the film concentrates not on the trial like other legal thrillers, but on the preparatory work that Dershowitz and his students put in as they attempt to disprove the prosecution’s case and achieve the Reversal of Fortune of the title.
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THE STEPFORD WIVES (2004)

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Directed By: Frank Oz
Written By: Paul Rudnick
Based On The Book By: Ira Levin
Cinematography By: Rob Hahn
Editor: Jay Rabinowitz 


Cast: Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Roger Bart, Matthew Broderick, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill, Matt Malloy, David Marshall Grant, Jon Lovitz, Kadee Strickland 


Joanna Eberhart, a wildly successful president of a TV Network, after a series of shocking events, suffers a nervous breakdown and is moved by her milquetoast of a husband, Walter, from Manhattan to the chic, upper-class, and very modern planned community of Stepford, Connecticut. Once there, she makes good friends with the acerbic Bobbie Markowitz, a Jewish writer who’s also a recovering alcoholic. Together they find out, much to their growing stupor and-then horror, that all the housewives in town are strangely blissful and, somehow… doomed. What is going on behind the closed doors of the Stepford Men’s Association and the Stepford Day Spa? Why is everything perfect here? Will it be too late for Joanna and Bobbie when they finally find out?

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GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

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Directed By: James Gunn
Written By: James Gunn & Nicole Perlman
Based on the Comic-Book By: Andy Lanning & Dan Adnett
Cinematography By: Ben Davis
Editor: Fred Raskin, Craig Wood & Hughes Winborne
Music By Tyler Bates 


Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Dijmon Hounsou Michael Rooker, Benecio Del Toro, Karen Gillan, Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, Vin Diesel (Voice Only), Bradley Cooper (Voice Only), Sean Gunn, Peter Serafinowicz, Gregg Henry

After stealing a mysterious orb in the far reaches of outer space, Peter Quill is now the main target of a manhunt led by the villain known as Ronan the Accuser. To help fight Ronan and his team and save the galaxy from his power, Quill creates a team known as the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ to save the world.

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THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (2017)

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Directed By: Colm McCarthy
Written By: Mike Carey (Based on His own Novel)
Cinematography By: Simon Dennis
Editor: Matthew Cannings 


Cast: Sennia Nanua, Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, Dominique Tipper, Fasiyo Akinade, Anamaria Marinca, Anthony Welsh 


In a dystopian near future, humanity has been ravaged by a mysterious fungal disease. The afflicted are robbed of all free will and turned into flesh-eating ‘hungries’. Humankind’s only hope is a small group of hybrid children who crave human flesh but retain the ability to think and feel. The children go to school at an army base in rural Britain, where they’re subjected to cruel experiments by Dr. Caroline Caldwell. School teacher Helen Justineau grows particularly close to an exceptional girl named Melanie, thus forming a special bond. But when the base is invaded, the trio escape with the assistance of Sgt. Eddie Parks and embark on a perilous journey of survival, during which Melanie must come to terms with who she is.

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