Shiny Things

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This category refers to movies whose primary objective is to be as loud, flashy, and visually aggressive as possible. While this tends to sum up most action movies, it can be any film that is more concerned with dazzling your eyes than your brain.

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3,000 Miles to Graceland

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

Battle: Los Angeles

Bad Boys II

Centurion

Collateral

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Crank: High Voltage

The Dark Knight

Death Race

District 9

District 13: Ultimatum

Drive Angry

Faster

From Paris With Love

Hancock

Inception

The Incredible Hulk

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Iron Man

The Island

The Matrix Reloaded

The Mechanic (2011)

Ninja Assassin

Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Predators

Punisher: War Zone

Quantum of Solace

Skyline

Star Trek (2009)

Super 8

Taken

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Terminator 3

Terminator Salvation

Transporter 2

Transporter 3

Tron: Legacy

Ultraviolet

Unstoppable

Up

Valhalla Rising

Wanted

Watchmen

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray

Roadracers

By Adam Lippe

Whenever there’s a genre parody or ode to a specific era of films, such as Black Dynamite’s mocking of Blaxploitation films or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the second half of Grindhouse, the danger is that the film might fall into the trap of either being condescending without any particular insight, or so faithful that it becomes the very flawed thing it is emulating.

Black Dynamite has nothing new to say about Blaxploitation films, it just does a decent job of copying what an inept [...]

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Featured Quote (written by me)

On Cold Fish:

Though the 16 year old me described the 1994 weepie Angie, starring Geena Davis as a Brooklyn mother raising her new baby alone, as “maudlin and melodramatic,” Roger Ebert, during his TV review, referring to the multitude of soap-operaish problems piling up on the titular character, suggested that it was only in Hollywood where Angie would get a happy ending. “If they made this movie in France, Angie would have shot herself.”

Well Cold Fish was made in Japan, where Angie would have shot herself and that would have been the happy ending.