LizFlix Reviews

LizFlix Reviews: The Babysitters
Though babysitting prostitution rings should certainly be considered moral abominations, I can’t help but demand that the movie that makes babysitting a real ‘service’ should be well… sexy. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Iron Man
When is comes to superhero movies, I think it’s best to keep figures like Batman in their Gothams – that way the audience isn’t too tempted to look for hero antics in America. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Du Levande (You, The Living) (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
Part of what makes this movie so genuinely genius to me is that what elements first left me dissatisfied, I later learned to love. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Who Is KK Downey? (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
I was really pleasantly taken away with the subtle, yet poignant wit that saturated Downey’s dialogue and made for a very sound, cohesive film. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Phoebe in Wonderland (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
I tried very hard to get in to the right mindset for this movie; I suspended my belief that it is wrong for Hollywood/ the Fanning family to herd the girls through a series of Blockbusters hits, plugging one or both in any movie according to age appropriateness. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: First Person (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
What astonished me about this group is that each and every one of them said that he or she wanted to go to college to get an ‘education.’ It is here that I must question what an education means to most folks. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Eleven Minutes (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
The structure of this documentary is pretty standard, though not very straightforward. The film follows McCarroll as he sketches his collection, assembles a team, and outsources his garments’ construction. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Bad Biology (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
Never before have I witnessed such impressive performances by human genitalia, but I was most impressed with Henenlotter’s leading actress Charlee Danielson, demur and lovely in person though very convincing as a super sexed siren on screen. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Young@Heart (reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
What most surprised me about this film, and this choir, was the profound dignity it directed toward its subjects. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Snow Angels
Kate Beckinsale is probably the best I’ve ever seen her here; her grief, her frustration, her acceptance, all of this was so wonderfully done, but perhaps the best thing she gave to this film was that she always looked so… cold. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Paranoid Park
There is a bit of beauty in this movie. Though its palate is primarily dark, the film’s contrast of color is captivating and its skateboarding sequences are really awe inspiring to watch. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Blindsight
There is a very tragic irony in going to see a movie about the blind. One questions the importance of film at all when it is realized that its subjects, even its creators could possibly never see the fruition of their hard work on screen. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Be Kind Rewind
Like any nice work of fiction, Be Kind Rewind has created a world that�s so tight and complete that it seizes on even the smallest chance of plausibility. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Charlie Bartlett
Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin), a rather inexplicably wealthy teenage oddball, has been kicked out of one private prep school after another for pulling naughty stunts like fake ID dealing. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Adventures of Power
Adventures of Power is in fact probably the most unique comedy I have seen in a great many years; in a time when American film fans are embarrassingly obsessed with such unoriginal story lines as teenage pregnancy, getting to witness a character with a genuinely fascinating world view and a wonderfully understated wit is a really refreshing treat. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
King of Kong is a swift kick in the pants to anyone who thinks that video gamers are soft-hearted pushovers; coin slingers can be downright nasty, and this film is the proof-ridden pudding. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Eye
Here is the classic conundrum of the pitiful, innocent victim of circumstance: the beautiful blind girl fatefully forced outside the realm of normal vision no matter what she does to help herself. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
ndeed, this is a movie about a man in a wheel chair – but that’s it; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly falls short of being a film about a real man, a well rounded, complex character complete in his past, present, and future. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Juno
Juno desperately tries to tout a leading character with high merit – oh yes, Juno decides not to get sucked into the evils of abortion in favor of giving her accidental baby up for adoption; she even eagerly pursues her baby’s prospective parents herself when at least one of them starts to have second thoughts. But - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Golden Compass
This film marks the debut of Dakota Blue Richards, cast as leading lady Lyra. I was pretty certain this young gal would turn out to be the horrifying fantasy movie double to sit/com cinema’s Dakota Fanning; I was pleasantly surprised to see that Richards packs in all of Fanning’s talent without any of her sickening sass. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Beowulf
If you haven’t heard the story of Beowulf already, don’t kill yourself trying to read it now. Rather, take a seat in front of the big screen and transport yourself to the world of kings, daemons, and limitless magic - the only world where such tales of cherished heroes as Beowulf can be told. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Down in the Valley
In Down in the Valley, Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) is a beautiful, seventeen-something young woman living with her father, Wade (David Morse) and her little brother, Lonnie (Rory Culkin) in today’s San Fernando Valley. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Jeffrey Blitz's Rocket Science
You know, I can’t keep my blood from running cold every time Hollywood contributes more clichéd garbage to the trash heap film genre called ‘coming of age.’ And, most often, my arteries all but turn to icicles each time I force myself to watch one of these movies. But, every so often, an exceptional ‘coming of age’ film does manage to warm my heart. This is rare; I suppose it takes Rocket Science. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Superbad
There isn’t much that sets Superbad’s plot apart from like-minded movies chronicling high school, hormones, obesity, and awkwardness. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Hot Rod
Would you like to see Napoleon Dynamite butchered to death and left out to bleed together with other prime cut selections of the world’s greatest films? You would? Why then, go see Hot Rod. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Sunshine
Sunshine is director Danny Boyle’s fantastic projection of mankind’s desperate, aeronautical effort to revive its life force by somehow dropping a bomb into the center of the sun and jumpstarting it into gear. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Simpsons Movie
I’ve heard it said that kinesis is too often mistaken for true entertainment in film. But rapidly moving slapstick is precisely what sets The Simpson’s brand of humor apart from other animated series. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Hairspray (2007)
The movie really seized the opportunity to add fantastical elements which aren’t possible in the show version; dancing billboards, duets with singing photographs, and other visual fancies were delightfully hilarious to watch. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Rescue Dawn
Rescue Dawn is Werner Herzog’s period biopic tribute to fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, whose incredible escape from a Pathet Lao POW camp is one of the few uplifting stories to have come out of Vietnam. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Talk To Me
Talk to Me follows Petey Greene’s rise to and voluntary fall from big time celebrity status during a time when a radio revolution paralleled radical race division and social upheaval. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Little Children
Little Children expertly plants seedling stories of young adult suburban marriages, tends to them gently as they entangle, and relishes in the fruit of a brilliantly harvested ending. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Joshua
Combine a hint of Hitchcock style horror, a dash of domestic disturbance, and a pinch of post partum depression. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: License To Wed
If you’re giving yourself permission to relax in front of some good humored romantic silliness, I would strongly suggest kicking back and enjoying License to Wed. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Manufactured Landscapes
You’d probably be hard pressed to argue that world renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky hasn’t tapped something extraordinary with his work. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Devil Came on Horseback
The Darfur region of Western Sudan is literally being burnt alive. Since 2003, 450,000 of its black, African citizens have been mercilessly raped, tortured, and killed. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Live Free or Die Hard
There’s nothing too deep or impressive about this flick, which probably qualifies it as a Die Hard fan’s delight; there is, after all, a lot of great action and an incredibly hot bad girl played by Mai Lihn. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Sicko
Love him or hate him, you’re probably very inclined to see his films. There’s a “gotta see it” vibe that radiates from all of Michael Moore’s documentaries, soon before and long after their releases. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: A Mighty Heart
January 23, 2002: Daniel Pearl, South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was abducted en route to an interview in Karachi, Pakistan during his post 911 investigation of terrorist shoe bomber Richard Reid. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Secret Life of Words
The Secret Life of Words is writer/director Isabel Coixet’s solemnly captivating film about the raw and tender love between two people whose bodies have been assaulted and whose souls have been tortured and stripped bare. Hanna (Sarah Polley) is a young factory employee with a perfect track record, forced on holiday after coworkers complain she is difficult to deal with. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Pan's Labyrinth
Pan’s Labyrinth, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, is a visually stunning take on the parallel between fairytales and the real world. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Crazy Love
In the summer of 1959, the nation was shocked when twenty year old Linda Riss was attacked, blinded, and disfigured on the front steps of her home in the Bronx. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Waitress
I’ve an overwhelming desire to embrace complete bias in reviewing this movie. Waitress, after all, was the last creation of its writer/director, Adrienne Shelly, who was tragically murdered by a construction worker in her New York apartment during the making of the film. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Once
I feel I must clarify myself a bit when I speak of this film as a “musical.” There are no flashy costumes, no arms flailing through dance routines. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: The Fountain
The Fountain was the first film I’d seen in a theater after being sick for a bit, so I was naturally quite upset when the credits started rolling and I had no idea what had just transpired. - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Blades of Glory
This is a Will Ferrell movie; of course the plot skates on thin ice. But it works... - Read More

LizFlix Reviews: Knocked Up
We loved Judd Apatow’s take on middle aged virginity, and he’s only done more to spice up his take on sex, love, and absurdity with Knocked Up, his feature flick about a one night stand that results in a lifelong deal. Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl stars as beautiful, successful Alison Scott, the twenty-something E! news journalist who parties a little too hard celebrating a promotion and hooks up with the sloppy (yet lovable) slacker Ben Stone (Seth Rogen). - Read More