With a director more accustomed to shooting good looking and well handled action sequences, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is just a slight notch better than its predecessor, but nearly every other positive and negative from the first film remains exactly the same.
While he continues to court the mainstream following the success of The Fighter, director David O. Russell and Bradley Cooper in the best performance of his career help make Silver Linings Playbook one of the best Hollywood portrayals of mental illness to date, even if the film's final third is a really standard sort of romantic comedy.
Dork Shelf sits down with director David O. Russell, former sexiest man alive Bradley Cooper, and rising superstar Jennifer Lawrence about their work on Silver Linings Playbook and creating a film about mental illness that keeps it as real as humanly possible.
The good news about House at the End of the Street is that it’s not the aggressive swell of haunted house horror clichés that the trailers promised. Nope, this is actually somewhat of a traditional thriller that has more in common with a certain Hitchcock movie than it does with the latest direct-to-DVD genre rehash. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good thriller and the suspense/scares are doled out in such a dreary “slow burn” way that about as much time is spent developing a “battle of the bands” subplot as building up dread or atmosphere.
As TIFF 2012 finishes up its first weekend, our ongoing coverage looks at The Master, To the Wonder, High Park on Hudson, End of Watch, Aftershock, Sightseers, The Crimes of Mike Recket, No One Lives, and Midnight's Children.
This week on DVD we look at the stellar Oscar winning foreign drama A Separation, Richard Linklater's unfortunately slept on Bernie, the direct to DVD efforts Breathless, A Girl Walks into a Bar, and the Dolph Lundgren starring One in the Chamber. Oh, and some indie film called The Hunger Games
We talk to The Hunger Games' Liam Hemsworth about the building of his character over the next few films of a highly anticipated franchise, working with co-star Jennifer Lawrence, and his disdain for reality television.
Transcending its young adult novel source, The Hunger Games rises above its modest trappings to become a truly great film. Well, that’s not entirely true, but much like some of the film’s characters would say, it’s close enough to spin it into something.
Dork Shelf got a chance to talk to talk to The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson about the pressures of adapting such a beloved story, his working relationship with Jennifer Lawrence, and how to just be yourself in an interview.
