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CUT AND REEL PRESENTS: REEL Classics – Chick Flicks

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:45:22 +0000

Cut and Reel celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness Month** and Domestic Violence Awareness Month*** with a tribute to Women in Film. This week Cut and Reel presents REEL CLASSICS: Chick Flicks Cut and Reel Live! hosts Maureen Shampine and Jennifer Haren give you their top 20 chick flicks of all time.

CUT AND REEL PRESENTS – Whip It!

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:35:15 +0000

Drew Barrymore makes her directoral debut in "Whip It", a story of a small town high school girl who becomes a roller derby star. Ellen Page stars as Bliss Cavendar, or Babe Ruthless, the roller derby rookie, who takes to skates like a fish to water.

Cut and Reel Presents: Inglourious Basterds

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:18:13 +0000

Tarantino then skillfully weaves a new web in wartime film epics, subtly reminding the viewer that war makes every person it touches an inglourious basterd. He dutifully does so while delivering action, intrigue, and clever, sophisticated dialogue (in several languages) and characters. With no clear distinction between saints and sinners, friends and foes, heroes and villains, he discreetly poses questions of morality, loyalty, and retribution--all too familiar themes from Tarantino, but this time rendered more subliminally and more sublimely than ever before.

CUT AND REEL: STAY IN WITH A REEL CLASSIC – A Bronx Tale

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:17:02 +0000

Based on Chazz Palminteri's real-life experiences of growing up in the Bronx, A Bronx Tale is an incredibly humbling coming-of-age story in which the lines are blurred between good versus evil and right versus wrong. Robert De Niro co-stars in his directorial debut as Lorenzo Anello, a proud blue-collar man who is rich with integrity and teaches these virtues to his son by being a living example. His young son, Calogero, admires his father, but can't shake his fascination with neighborhood gangster Sonny LoSpecchio.

CUT AND REEL: ‘The Proposal’

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:54:45 +0000

I know this isn’t the stuff that Oscars are made of, but come on! This woman couldn’t figure out that she needed to get an ‘O1 visa months before to avoid getting shipped back to Canada? I think the biggest problem I have with this scenario is that she is supposed to be an intelligent, resourceful woman, but really she puts more energy into solidifying her reputation as being the queen bitch of publishing (cleverly demonstrated when her underlings are IMing each other the day’s latest batch of office gossip) than into solving her residency problem. So then it’s time to see the immigration guy, and he’s not buyin’ their story, but gives them the opportunity to prove the validity of their relationship to him in a few days by answering some very invasive questions about their newly announced relationship—borrowing a page from the Green Card script, perhaps? So to help push the act a bit, they now go see Andrew’s family in Alaska for his grandma’s (Betty White) 90th birthday and to deliver the “good” news. I honestly really don’t feel like rehearsing the rest of the film for you—you can probably guess where it’s going anyway (down the toilet).

CUT AND REEL: ‘500 Days (of Summer)’

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:51:50 +0000

Every now and then a summer romance comedy/drama comes along that makes you forget why you hated them in the first place—500 Days of Summer is one such remarkable film. From its clever opening and ominous, narrative exposition, the viewer is enchanted and enamored by the story’s two irresistibly adorable main characters, Tom Hansen and Summer [...]

CUT and REEL: ‘Sunshine Cleaning’

Karen Reeder — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:12:47 +0000

Sunshine Cleaning is a decent movie and the story depicts the characters as true to life; a family that anyone can relate to. If only the characters picked up the shampoo bottle of life—read the directions—lather and rinse; repeat as necessary—their lives would dramatically improve.

CUT and REEL: Stay in with a REEL Classic… Valmont

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:04:20 +0000

(Amadeus) stunning rendition of the French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses brilliantly captures the wry, miscreant mind games of French Rococo era aristocracy--rife with intrigue, sensuality, sexual tension, and above all, frivolity--the hallmark of the era. Colin Firth (as the title character) and Annette Benning (each before becoming household names) light up the screen with electric chemistry as the scheming, sometime lovers of 18th century French aristocratic society locked in an impenetrable psychological and emotional duel to the death.

Cut and Reel: Stay in with a REEL CLASSIC…Charade

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:11:36 +0000

This Hitchcockianesque-thriller has all the thrills and sardonic humor one would expect to find from a standard Hitchcock, without the ironic pathos and psychological duress of one. It stars two major iconoclasts of American Cinema (though ironically, both are European imports): the delightful Audrey Hepburn and the dashing Cary Grant who, despite some dire and dangerous circumstances, whimsically woo their way into each other’s hearts, and ours.

CUT and REEL: Two Lovers

Maureen Shampine — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:03:48 +0000

Paltrow is terribly miscast as his neighbor --a twenty-something party girl who clamors to maintain an illicit affair with her married boss, meanwhile becoming Phoenix's friend and unrequited objet de l' amour.