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Divisadero

Michael Ondaatje

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

It is the 1970s in Northern California. A farmer and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work...

Network (1976)

8.2 (10 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

Acclaimed satirical comedy-drama concerning the state of the US and particularly its TV in the mid...

satire eerily prophetic

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads

7.7 (6 Ratings) Rate It

TV Show

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? is a British sitcom which was broadcast between 9 January 1973...

Sitcom 1970s BBC Comedy

Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated The Box (2009) in Movies

Aug 9, 2019

The Box (2009)

2009 | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

6.8

(11 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Norma Lewis (Cameron Diaz) and her husband, Arthur Lewis (James Marsden), are having a bad day. She just found out her educational scholarship will be ending and he is not going to become an astronaut even when he fits the bill. It is on this particularly challenging day that a mysterious box arrives on their doorstep. The package contains a button which when pressed is worth a million dollar payout but also will kill a random person unknown to the button pusher. Should they push the button and what happens if they do?

Based on the short story Button, Button by Richard Mathason, “The Box” stays true to Mathason’s one of a kind style. It is an interesting premise, and would make an interesting television episode, but falters as a full-length film.
“The Box” gives almost nothing to viewers, running so far off the original ‘push the button, don’t push the button’ issue as to baffle audiences. The more time goes on the more ridiculous the plot becomes and as a viewer you begin to wonder if the movie will ever end.

Furthering the joylessness of “the Box” is the overabundant use of 1970s décor and objects. Not at all subtle, the film’s need to beat you over the head with the time period is distracting from the plot of this already shaky film. Far to blatant to be unnoticeable, you leave the film not entirely sure what has happened but very sure it happened in the 1970s.

This is not to say that the film doesn’t offer some satisfaction, but the work put into stretching this short story into a full-length feature film leaves many lingering questions for the viewer.

So if you really enjoy a yellowish tint to your film going experience or overly blatant references to the 1970s you should definitely go see “The Box” but if you lack these offbeat qualities I suggest quickly reading the short story.

Kudos

Knife River (The Ty Dawson Mysteries)

Baron Birtcher

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

A sheriff fighting to keep the peace in 1970s Oregon faces a shocking secret from his town’s past,...

Crime Thriller Series Mystery 1970s Historical

Erika (17788 KP) rated Macbeth in Books

Apr 11, 2018

Macbeth

Jo Nesbo | 2018 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller

9.3

(3 Ratings)

Book Rating

I was psyched when I read that Jo Nesbo was doing a take on Macbeth for Hogarth. After reading this, I feel a little ambivalent. Normally, I love everything he writes, but this one was extremely slow. I think that a lot of my neither here nor there feeling has to do with the original source material, rather than Nesbo's take on it.
The setting of the 1970s really worked, and I did really like the characterization of Macbeth. I was glad that it was relatively true to the original play to the end.
I received an ARC from Penguin's First to Read in exchange for an unbiased review.