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The Curious Case of Wendy and Lucy

By The Pajiba Staff | DVD Releases | May 5, 2009 |

By The Pajiba Staff | DVD Releases | May 5, 2009 |


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Back before Dustin got needlessly apocalyptic in his hate for this movie, Dan wrote a nice, reserved review with quite a bit more perspective. He writes, “The simple acceptance of that fantastical way of life is sorely underplayed in the film, and though the story’s time frame allows Benjamin to live pretty easily off the grid, it would have been nice for Fincher to have dug deeper into the lives and reactions of Benjamin’s friends and loved ones as they watched him slide backward through life. But like too many other parts of the story, it just doesn’t connect. That’s the main problem with the film: Like its central characters, Fincher and the story come at each other crosswise, meeting in the middle but ultimately consigned to pass unfulfilled, knowing what might have been but unable to change what is.”

Last Chance Harvey: Dan gloriously equates the movie’s title with the film’s overall quality, writing; “The title alone is a semantic minefield: Last Chance Harvey. It’s gratingly clear from the outset that the thrust is that this is Harvey’s last chance to do something good for himself, or his relationships, or his career, but the ambiguous phrasing and distressing lack of punctuation are apparently trying to make the title into something more, as if Harvey’s a guy who thrives on last chances, or can be counted on when his back’s against the wall, or whatever. Basically the title is something that should be clearer, and could be, but willfully chooses to stop halfway, and that’s the problem with the film overall.

Wendy & Lucy: Dustin argued that the Michelle Wiliam’s film is exactly the kind of movie a MOVIE CRITIC might love, writing: “It’s hard to describe Wendy and Lucy; it’s too simple, really, to be pretentious, and lacks the requisite quirky characters to qualify as a winsome indie flick. It’s not a character study, a relationship drama, or a slice-of-life film, either. It’s just kind of one of those films where somebody walks around, stares out windows, and looks at trees, and somebody else with a camera follows behind filming the person walking around, staring out windows, and looking at trees.”

And, in addition to those three titles, there was also the straight-to-video, Incendiary, starring Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor. We should have a review up this week, perhaps explaining why a movie with those names above the marquee is going straight to DVD.