New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.

Follow Me

• 2009 Oscars
• District 13: Ultimatum **1/2
• From Paris with Love **1/2
• Edge of Darkness **
• Fish Tank ***1/2
• Legion **
• When in Rome *
• More

• Adam
• The Bourne Identity [DVD/Blu-Ray hybrid]
• The Bourne Supremacy [DVD/Blu-Ray hybrid]
• The Bourne Ultimatum [DVD/Blu-Ray hybrid]
• The House of the Devil
• Import Export
• More Than a Game
• Ong-Bak 2
• Zombieland
• The 25 Best DVDs of 2009
• More

• 2009: The Year's Ten Best Films
• The Decade's Ten Best Films: 2000-2009
• My 2003 Interview with Brittany Murphy
• San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2009
• Richard Linklater
• John Woo
• Jared and Jerusha Hess
• Essential Halloween Movies
• Michael Stuhlbarg
• Jane Campion
• Bobcat Goldthwait
• Hugh Dancy
• Kathryn Bigelow
• Willem Dafoe: The 2009 CineVegas Interview
• David Carradine
• A 2002 Interview with Edward Asner
• Vinessa Shaw
• Henry Selick
• 2008: The Year's Ten Best Films
• The San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2008
• The 25 Best DVDs of 2008
• Bruce Campbell
• Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei
• Josh Brolin
• A Tribute to Paul Newman
• Steve Coogan on Hamlet 2
• Manny Farber (1917-2008)
• Bernie Mac (1957-2008)
• Emily Mortimer
• Brad Anderson
• Don Cheadle at CineVegas
• Abel Ferrara at CineVegas
• Tina Sinatra
• My Top 100 Films [Updated]
• My Top 60 Directors [Updated]
• The Top 50 Movies of the Past Ten Years (1997-2006)
• Terry Zwigoff on the new Bad Santa Director's Cut
• Alfonso Cuarón Interview
• Guillermo Del Toro Interview
• Christmas Movies
• Combustible Celluloid's Big Guide to Halloween & Horror Movies
• Cult Movies
• Actress Interview Gallery
• The Top 100
• More Features and Interviews

• Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone
• James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee
• Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis
• Guide to Essential Movies, by Joe Leydon
• Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, by Robert S. Birchard
• Profoundly Disturbing, by Joe Bob Briggs
• A Third Face, by Samuel Fuller
• Dark Lover, by Emily Leider
• Agee on Film, by James Agee
• Lulu in Hollywood, by Louise Brooks
• Negative Space, by Manny Farber
• 5001 Nights at the Movies, by Pauline Kael
• More Books

• Home
• Reviews A-C
• Reviews D-F
• Reviews G-J
• Reviews K-M
• Reviews N-Q
• Reviews R-T
• Reviews U-Z

The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

SEARCH MOVIES / CELEB

3 Needles (2006)

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Blood and Nuts

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy 3 Needles on DVD

Perhaps writer/director Thom Fitzgerald thought he could avoid the "preachy" tag on his new movie 3 Needles simply by never mentioning the term AIDS. Sadly, his idea doesn't work. This very odd triptych shows the disease's effects throughout the world. In the first story, a Chinese woman (Lucy Liu) helps run a blood-donor scam, in which she sells illegal blood on the black market, even if the means for taking that blood is not particularly clean; she and her sick husband travel from village to village, moving on after everyone contracts a disease. It turns out that she's being held hostage (?) and that she's really not a bad sort. The second story takes place in French-Canada where a male porn star (Shawn Ashmore) covers up his disease by stealing his father's blood for his monthly blood test. His mother (Stockard Channing) cooks up a life insurance scam to help them get the best things in life. Finally, three nuns (Chloe Sevigny, Sandra Oh and Olympia Dukakis) arrive in South Africa to save the souls of the afflicted. One nun, Clara (Sevigny), realizes that she can do more by influencing a rich, white plantation owner (Ian Roberts). Meanwhile, Oh and Dukakis wind up doing practically nothing. A South African rite of passage bookends the film, but doesn't really connect with anything. 3 Needles is ridden with Oscar moments -- Channing is particularly effective -- and it's gorgeously filmed, but its character logic very rarely makes any sense. Moreover, there's no focal point for the entire exercise, no place to look for blame or answers. Fitzgerald probably wanted to move and outrage his audience, but instead the cumulative effect is one of confusion. The film opens in San Francisco at the Roxie Cinema.

AskMen.com: 3 Needles

DVD Details: The 2007 DVD from Wolfe Video comes with a trailer, deleted scenes, a photo gallery, and lots of AIDS-related featurettes. It includes optional English subtitles, and trailers for other Wolfe releases.

Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Stockard Channing, Olympia Dukakis, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Chloe Sevigny, Ian Roberts
Written by: Thom Fitzgerald
Directed by: Thom Fitzgerald
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 127 minutes
Date: December 1, 2006