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The Archives
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11.24.09Good Hair Review Goon | Reviews | (1)Good Hair Directed by: Jeff Stilson Starring: Chris Rock, Nia Long, Ice-T, Al Sharpton, Maya Angelou, Eve, Tracie Thoms I have more rap albums than I have black friends on Facebook, and I don't have that many rap albums. There is and has always been a lot of black culture that I can only understand so much, but I never really thought about hair's role. It seems so simple - you grow it, you dye it, you straighten it, you comb it - hair just happens, and I had never bothered to think about dreadlocks or cornrows or even afros beyond the ...
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12.14.05Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price Goon | Reviews | (1)Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price Directed by Robert Greenwald I have to admit, I have a bias with this film. I detest Wal-Mart and haven’t shopped there for over a year. Pretty much any reason why is contained within this incredibly biased documentary, which comes to us from the director of other politically motivated documentaries such as “Outfoxed” and “Uncovered”. I worked at Wal-Mart a few years ago, and I still think it was the most soul-crushing, unfair, creepy, cult-ish workplace I’ve ever been in, and I’ve worked for some pretty crazy people and places. In it’s attempt to persuade you, ...
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12.10.05Murderball Goon | Reviews | (0)Murderball Directed by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro When the acclaimed documentary “Murderball” came out, I didn’t really care to see it. To me, a sports movie about quadriplegics wasn’t any more appealing to me than a regular sports movie. Eventually I found out that the movie was about a lot more than that, about the daily lives and struggles these men face, their personal stories of how they came to find Murderball, the contact sport where quads in souped up wheelchairs play a modified version of rugby. I didn’t really feel I needed a movie to tell me that ...
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08.23.05The Aristocrats Goon | Reviews | (0)The Aristocrats Directed by: Paul Provenza Starring: Approximately 100 comedians including Penn Jillette, Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Gilbert Gottfried The Aristocrats is a documentary about a dirty joke with the same beginning and the same end. A family of performers visit a talent agent, say: “We’ve got an amazing act for you”. They perform the most disgusting things you can imagine. The talent agent says: “That’s a hell of an act. What do you call it?” The answer: The Aristocrats. It’s not a funny joke at all, but as Penn Jillette says, “It’s the singer, not the song”. The Aristocrats is 100 comedians’ take ...
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08.02.05Overnight Goon | Reviews | (1)Overnight (DVD) Directed by: Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith Starring: Troy Duffy, his band, the directors, and a slew of celebrities I first saw “Boondock Saints” on video in 2001. I liked it, and still kind of do. I knew right away though that it was a flawed Tarantino ripoff, but the performances are quite funny, there’s many memorable good moments and action sequences, and its generally fun. It tries to stir up some discussion about vigilantism, and it fails at that, however as an indie film I thought it was certainly above average. I believed the cult status it has accumulated ...
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05.31.05The Fearless Freaks Goon | Reviews | (0)The Fearless Freaks: The Wondrously Improbable Story of The Flaming Lips (DVD) Directed by: Bradley Beesley The Flaming Lips have been around for over 20 years now, but have really only come to be known in the last 10 years starting with their surprise hit “She Don’tUse Jelly”. I was too young at the time to see the Lips as anything more than a novelty act, and it wasn’t until the critical brouhaha surrounding 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin” that I bothered giving them a chance. Since then they’ve become one of my favorite bands, and their upcoming album is one of the years ...
