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Reviews
Smiley Face (2007)
I Can't Believe This is a Gregg Araki Movie
I kept waiting for this movie to redeem itself from being one fixed stereotype on pot users and it never did. All I can figure is that Araki got busted and this was his stab at community service. I love his other works, so I was extremely disappointed.
In his teen angst movies, stupid characters equaled naiveté' and innocence; in this one stupid just equals stupid. James Duval's characters experienced the world in a kind of haze in Araki's earlier works and it worked. But on watching the cartoon mugging of Anna Faris, it loses all its charm.
Come on, Gregg -- let's see the old fire. Give us some bisexuals in bizarre situations, thwarted threesomes, acid-tinged road movies. That's what I love in a Gregg Araki film -- not a long-format Saturday Night Live sketch about a one-joke pothead.
Innocent Lies (1995)
All Style and No Substance
If you like longing glances into the misty distance, unmotivated yet psychotic incest, and daft police work, you'll love this waste of time and film.
The casting director clearly liked a specific "look" of female. As a result, I spent the first half of the movie just trying to keep the female characters straight. Beautiful women are not enough to save this flimsiest of scripts, however.
I feel cheated. I could've been playing solitaire. It would've been equally fulfilling. Clearly, I do not recommend this movie. I was hoping for so much more from a largely watchable cast.