Locke (Steven Knight, 2014) – Steven Knight’s single setting and single actor drama Locke is what it is without much to really talk about, but it’s also quite good. An existential and rationalist drama set within the confines of a single car while a man’s life crashes down around him, Locke is the kind of film that’s […]
Oculus (Mike Flanagan, 2014) – It can be a hard thing for a critic to admit, but sometimes we can be wrong. I’m having a hard time remembering a movie I was as wrong about as I was with Oculus, though. When I first watched it several months ago at the Toronto International Film Festival (while […]
Kingdom Come (Paiman Kalayeh, John Lyons Murphy, 2012) – I’ve been recently working on writing a piece about questions you should never ask at a Q&A following a screening at a film festival. One of those questions is “Was it a struggle to get this film made?” I say you shouldn’t ask that not because […]
Sabotage (David Ayer, 2014) – There’s an interesting problem with Sabotage that most films never quite suffer from. Once you go through the few supplemental features on the film’s Blu-Ray (which was not made available to press and I had to go out and buy on my own), you’ll get wind that there was a […]
The Time Machine (George Pal, 1960) – Time is often referred to as a fickle mistress and it holds quite true in the realm of films and filmmaking. Even though a film has been remade it certainly doesn’t mean that it has improved on the original. Based on the classic H.G. Wells story, The Time […]
Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg, 2014) – Prolific low budget writer/director Joe Swanberg comes straight to VOD (with a limited theatrical for our neighbors to the south) with Happy Christmas, a slight yet effective piece of mumble core that feels a lot more intimate then it has any business being on a passing glance. Jeff and […]
Transcendence (Wally Pfister, 2014) – More than anything else, Transcendence is a lesson in how tone can kill a movie. The premise is goofy, the science is half-cocked, and the message is obvious. However, it is a blockbuster, so those things wouldn’t matter quite so much if it were bright, colorful, and silly. But Transcendence […]
The Raid 2 (Gareth Evans, 2014) – The Raid: Redemption was a wonderfully nasty little action movie that came out of nowhere to tickle the shriveled hearts of fans of blood soaked entertainment in 2011. The instant cult classic was a perfectly structured bit of B-movie bliss. A few minutes of set up, followed by […]
Noah (Darren Aronofsky, 2014) – The most remarkable aspect of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is simply the fact that it exists. It’s not supposed to be possible for an idiosyncratic director to get a massive blockbuster budget to make a challenging and thought-provoking movie no matter how many battle scenes are wrapped around the ideas. More […]
Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa .5 (Jeff Tremaine, 2014) – Part of the bizarre tradition of Jackass feature film releases is that every movie gets a DVD loaded with deleted sequences as well as a second .5 release of additional deleted sequences cut together into a second feature film. You could easily write this process off […]
Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983) – Some cult classics emerge because they are brilliant works of art that were unfairly ignored upon their initial release, while some attract loyal followings because they aren’t so much good as they are batshit insane. They transcend “bad movie” status. Sleepaway Camp falls into the latter category. Robert Hiltzik’s […]
Discopath (Renaud Gauthier, 2013) – For most people, hearing disco music pumping through the speakers inspires most people to get up, boogie and dance the night away or giggle and remember how silly the 70s were…most people that is. Discopath is blood spattered ode to the giallo and indie horror of the 1970’s and early […]
Like Father Like Son (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2013) – Like Father, Like Son is the kind of story that runs the full gamut of human emotions. Writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda revisits his ongoing preoccupation with family dynamics and parent-child relationships in contemporary Japan with this fascinating look at nature vs. nurture. The life of workaholic architect Ryota (Masaharu […]
Alexander: The Ultimate Cut (Oliver Stone, 2004) – The art of filmmaking is a complex beast at the best of times. A piece of cinema can be seen as a living breathing entity with a myriad of opportunities and possible outcomes inside what was shot and how it’s ultimately assembled. The best of directors struggle […]
Afflicted (Derek Lee, Cliff Prowse, 2013) – Afflicted is a fresh and thrilling found-footage take on vampire mythology that pushes the stakes higher and harder than most of its predecessors, giving the film a real sense of humanity that can easily be embraced. Best friends Derek and Clif set out on a trip of lifetime […]
