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The Bellboy - 8/10
The next time I cite a Cahiers du Cinema poll and somebody stuffily informs me "Well, it's the French, they like Jerry Lewis, after all," I'll just tell them to kiss my ass. Bizarre vignettes make up this comedy about a bellboy at a Florida hotel and his crazy hijinks with the residents (including a surreal Stan Laurel mimic and Lewis playing himself or a version of himself). I could definitely see this having an unconscious influence on people like Roy Andersson. His film Songs from the Second Floor takes Lewis' schtick down a notch to deadpan, but the trappings are there.
The Grey - 7/10
Joe Carnahan is on his A-game here (let us never speak of Smokin' Aces again). Like an elegaic poem from the beyond, it's so bullshit free even to the point where there's really no backstory to anything (other than fleeting moments of Neeson's life, i.e. his Irish motherfucker of a pop). Not the action film the ads are making it out to be.
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