Swords, sorcery, and…Stewart. The idea of making a fairy tale “dark” isn’t so ridiculous in retrospect– the Disney versions of these stories are like toothpaste commercials compared to what the Brothers Grimm jotted down so long ago. But “dark” doesn’t mean “good”, and Snow White and the Huntsman proves that quite ably. Continue reading »
A daring foray into an ongoing real-world disaster, accented by some great, spooky, atmospheric imagery, doesn’t do anything more with its concepts than serve up sub-standard horror driven by amazingly bad decision-making skills. Continue reading »
I absolutely adored this mesmerizing, eerie, and breathtakingly composed film– inasmuch as something this unsettling can be adored– and it’s all thanks to some top-drawer editing and a startlingly assured debut by Elizabeth Olsen. Continue reading »
If one word describes In the Loop, Armando Iannucci’s 2009 political satire, it’s almost certainly “scathing”. If two, that and “unforgiving”. Going further would only yield an entire novella of words meant to convey intense discontent or outright anger, and indeed the only declarative statement I can make about the film in the positive is … Continue reading »
Peter Berg’s latest offering is irredeemably terrible. Continue reading »
My review should make it immediately, abundantly clear, but I really didn’t like Tim Burton’s latest gaudy, Gothic opus, a re-interpretation/adaptation of the 1960s/70s TV show Dark Shadows. Diehard fans who worship at the Nightmare Before Christmas director’s altar will probably find themselves quite dazzled by what he’s done here, and in fairness I think … Continue reading »
It’s taken me some time, but I finally have the second half of the most recent Criterion Files installment for you to peruse. I realize we’re well outside the week and a half timeline I hinted at in the first part, but by now you should all know me well enough to not take my … Continue reading »
The Avengers didn’t have to do much to impress me. Being as honest as possible, Joss Whedon’s attempt at making a respectable entrance into the 2012 summer season with the capstone picture of Marvel Studios’ long-gestating superhero bonanza just needed to be tolerable to get a pass from me. Put bluntly, C-level material alone would … Continue reading »
There’s a near-fatal overload of ideas bouncing around in the hulking frame of Nick Stoller’s The Five-Year Engagement, his follow-up to 2010’s Get Him to the Greek. Primarily a comedy, the film examines not simply marriage—as the title dictates—but the reversing and alteration of gender roles in modern relationships, which I admit sounds high-minded … Continue reading »
While the Independent Film Festival Boston doesn’t end until this Wednesday, my time out at the Somerville and Brattle theaters has run out– but I’ve got a handful of reviews up over at Go See Talk and two more in the tank that I’ll post in the next couple of days! I had a blast … Continue reading »
The Raid kicks ass. I almost want to leave the review at those four lone words; they convey all of the meaning needed to either sell you on The Raid or inform you that your time would be better spent elsewhere. But I can’t get away with that sort of smirking plebian criticism, and besides, … Continue reading »
With Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon have crafted the new yardstick by which all horror films released in its wake will be judged. That analogy’s somewhat mild and unseasoned. More accurately, they’ve saturation bombed the genre with barb-filled ordnance wrapped up in one enormous love letter, launching a payload containing their affections … Continue reading »
You may remember some weeks back that I happened into an opportunity to participate in a round table interview the effervescent Joseph Kahn regarding his second feature film, the multi-genre mind-bending slasher-time travel-teen drama-comedy-kung fu-cultural commentary bonanza, Detention. Well, it’s Friday the 13th– and that means that not only am I barring my doors to keep … Continue reading »
I’ve said before that Steven Soderbergh is a genre chameleon; if this year’s Haywire doesn’t unequivocally prove that, then last year’s Contagion should, and soundly at that. Contagion may not be a straight genre film in the way that the multi-faceted filmmaker’s bone-snapping arthouse action film is, but it nonetheless exists as a synthesis of numerous filmmaking categories– essentially, … Continue reading »
For the last decade, Japanese maestro Takeshi Kitano has taken a break from the Yakuza films that have come to strongly identify his entire body of work, turning to projects ranging from Zatoichi to his surreal and allegedly autobiographical trilogy of pictures starting with Takeshis and ending with 2008′s Achilles and the Tortoise. But ten … Continue reading »
I’m going to do something a little bit different with this week’s Criterion File– I’m splitting it up into two segments. Why? Simple: the two films I selected for this installment both gave me an enormous amount to talk about, and not just on individual levels, or within the context of themselves, either. On the … Continue reading »
For fans of FX spectacles, monster mashes, Roman mythology, and the God of War video game series, you’re in luck– the sequel to 2010′s Clash of the Titans remake hits theaters today. While I don’t think it’s a total loss, I found Wrath of the Titans to be lacking in a firm direction, never really fitting into a … Continue reading »
Part of me wants to classify Jeff Nichols’ sophomore effort at least partially as horror. Not in the exploitative slashing sense, of course, but more in the vein of Polanski or Friedkin. The aptly dubbed Take Shelter blends highbrow artistic filmmaking and storytelling with moments of utterly numbing terror– apocalyptic visions revolving around monstrous storms … Continue reading »
