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The Comedy
Tim Heidecker (of Tim & Eric renown) plays a rich, cynical hipster who uses New York City as his playground.
"...veers from Cassavetes-style realism into an experiment in sociological torture-porn. Like the pathologically spoiled George Amberson Minafer in The..."

Nov. 30, 2012 Movie Review by Leah Churner

All's Faire in Love
Christina Ricci stars in this strained romantic comedy set in the world of renaissance festivals.
"...There's punishment and then there's prolonged, squirm-inducing psychological torture, which is a more accurate description of All's Faire..."

Oct. 28, 2011 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
The most famous restaurant in the world is profiled in this documentary.
"...July 2011. Still, watching what once was is toothsome torture...."

Oct. 14, 2011 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Shark Night 3D
These sharks are as bland as their comely victims.
"...Attacks,” the filmmakers take a hard, ugly turn into torture-porn territory. Initially, Shark Night 3D is constantly leering –..."

Sept. 9, 2011 Movie Review by Kimberley Jones

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Coprophiliacs looking for a movie that really rings their chimes will be positively tintinnabulating from this arthouse horror number.
"...notorious Dutch film is sort of a thinking person’s torture-porn movie. It is excruciating to watch, even though there..."

May 7, 2010 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

The House of the Devil
This retro horror film is the freakiest and most unnerving shocker in theatres this season.
"...up the claustrophobic atmosphere and the overall suspense to Chinese-water-torture levels. It's not a classic so much as it..."

Oct. 30, 2009 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Keene Prize Winners Announced
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig takes home $50,000 for her play Lidless
"...described as "a poetic treatment of the issue of torture at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Cowhig..."

July 24, 2009 Books Post by Kimberley Jones

RocknRolla
Director Guy Ritchie once more delivers a kinetic and consequence-free tribute to the criminal lifestyle.
"...a watering hole and all its thugs, snitches, bosses, torturers, thieves, and junkies were merely animals fighting for their..."

Oct. 31, 2008 Movie Review by Josh Rosenblatt

The Bank Job
When a gang of thieves break into some London safe-deposit boxes, they enter a world of police corruption, financial malfeasance, sexual degeneracy, political conspiracy, murder, torture, and upper-class salaciousness.
"...police corruption, financial malfeasance, sexual degeneracy, political conspiracy, murder, torture, and upper-class salaciousness. In other words: a moviemaker’s dream...."

March 7, 2008 Movie Review by Josh Rosenblatt

Saw IV
Jigsaw died in Saw III but here we get to witness his autopsy, stem to stern, thus giving him not only the last laugh, but Being and Nothingness, as well.
"...all places, the daily news, Middle East and otherwise. Torture, you may recall, used to be an unparsable, unpardonable..."

Nov. 2, 2007 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Rush Hour 3
It's The Bourne Ultimatum's evil twin, relying, as it repeatedly does, on tired, cookie-cutter, cliché action set-pieces.
"...arrives midway through the film: He and his flunkies torture returning intercontinental buddy cops Los Angeles Detective Carter (Tucker)..."

Aug. 10, 2007 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

1408
Even though 1408 is one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever, this movie belongs to star John Cusack and director Mikael Håfström all the way.
"...differs from the current horror trend of randomly occurring torture porn. And I guarantee that you will never again..."

June 22, 2007 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

The Page Turner
In this quiet, French revenge film, a creeping malevolence wreaks havoc on an otherwise normal bourgeois family.
"...are no knives or armies of kung-fu acrobats, no torture scenes involving rusty pliers; there’s only a creeping malevolence..."

May 25, 2007 Movie Review by Josh Rosenblatt

Hoboken Hollow
This Texas-made slasher film draws on the early Eighties Ellebracht slave-ranch case in Kerr County for its story, but like the real thing, it's a bloody mess.
"...Texas family trading in goats, cedar, kidnapping, forced labor, torture, rape, and murder. We know that Trevor is not..."

Feb. 2, 2007 Movie Review by Shawn Badgley

Saw III
The director of Saw II is back for more of this vicious-minded series in which the psychopathic Jigsaw toys with his victims' last gasps.
"...an abandoned warehouse, nestled inside various and sundry hyperelaborate torture devices. Blood, gore, and viscera of an almost unprecedented..."

Nov. 3, 2006 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Catch a Fire
Phillip Noyce explores the havoc and repercussions caused by white interlopers toward indigenous peoples in this straightforward account of real-life black South African activist Patrick Chamusso and the white Boer police agent, who hunts him.
"...apolitical wife, Precious (Mbuli) – is rounded up and tortured by Vos' men in the wake of a botched..."

Oct. 27, 2006 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Wolf Creek
Wolf Creek is an accomplished Aussie version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; it's also a viscerally told slasher film that manages to do an awful lot with very little.
"...when they wake up, their nightmare begins. Bound and tortured by Taylor in a variety of grotesque and gruesome..."

Dec. 30, 2005 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

Don't Move
Italian story of a surgeon who falls in love with a country girl (Penélope Cruz), flirts with the self-pitying mindset of the slumming elite, and becomes something of an apology for bourgeois classism.
"...sort of mad love that so often used to torture Fellini’s characters. In the end, Italia even trades in..."

June 3, 2005 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Inside
"...twisted by a false sense of ethics. As Strydom's torture continues, it grows more intense, with Kruger convincing him..."

March 21, 1997 Movie Review by Alison Macor

Love & a .45
Early Renée in a heap of bloody Texas trouble.
"...Thelma and Louise, and the film also includes a quasi-torture scene involving a tattoo gun that resonates a bit..."

Nov. 25, 1994 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Female Misbehavior
"...of the warm, secure feelings she receives from breast torture. She speaks unabashedly to the camera of her sexual..."

April 9, 1993 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

Bebe's Kids
"...the uncontrollable brood of Jamika's absent best friend. They torture poor Robin and the well-mannered Leon and, before the..."

Aug. 28, 1992 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

A Paper Wedding
"...steps Pablo Torres, an illegal Chilean immigrant who faces torture or worse if he is deported. Prodded by her..."

Nov. 1, 1991 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Death Watch: Execution Stayed Until TDCJ Makes New Spiritual Adviser Rules
State's neglect also places Stephen Barbee at risk of torture
"...that attempting to flatten his arms would amount to torture, violating the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual..."

Nov. 11, 2022 News Feature by Brant Bingamon

How The Pulse Nightclub Massacre Transformed "Conversion Therapist"
Local horror-tinged short makes the personal political
"...science practice of using psychological and sometimes even physical torture to try to change a person's sexuality - is..."

Aug. 23, 2019 Screens Post by Richard Whittaker

The Hightower Report
Spider-Man gets kicked out of baseball; Bush and Rummy deny responsibility for torture
"...ACCOUNTABILITY FOR MILITARY TORTURE..."

May 28, 2004 News Column by Jim Hightower

The Hightower Report
Too Big to Punish?; and Begging for Regulation
"...to soil our nation's moral standing by engaging in torture – even as all of the above publicly denied..."

May 22, 2009 News Column by Jim Hightower

The Hightower Report
What Torture Is; and the Coalition Goes Home
"...WHAT TORTURE IS..."

Oct. 26, 2007 News Column by Jim Hightower

Perversion of Power
"...Editor, While I commend Bob Farnsworth's letter lamenting the torture of prisoners of war ["Postmarks Online," Jan. 24], I..."

Jan. 28, 2005 Postmarks

The Hightower Report
Farmer David fights Monsanto Goliath; and it's not torture if Bush says it's not
"...BUSH'S TORTURE MEMOS..."

July 2, 2004 News Column by Jim Hightower

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