Ready for another trip to Woodsboro? I can’t quite pin down why anyone thought that the world needed a fourth entry in Wes Craven’s Scream franchise, but here we are with Scream 4 repeating the same conceit as the first three films. Certainly slasher series are known to possess impressive life spans that carry them … Continue reading
I’d like to make it clear that I very desperately wanted to love Andrew Niccol’s In Time, a science fiction yarn which occurs in a future where time is currency and stars Justin Timberlake, but during a preview screening I recently attended I could not for the life of me get past the notion that … Continue reading
Last year, AMC’s runaway success story The Walking Dead hit the ground running with a promising first half that petered out and turned into something muddled and disappointing yet still brimming with potential. I admit that for a show like this, I’m an easy sell; I’m a zombie connoisseur, an aficionado of all things shambling, groaning, … Continue reading
The Trip‘s primary, or perhaps ideal, audience may be comprised of frequent adherents of the Top Chef and aficionados of wry British wit. Michael Winterbottom’s film spends most of its time with its two stars, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, but the acclaimed director is playing loose enough here that he feels safe sneaking off … Continue reading
Married couple Michael and Joanna attend a party with the former’s coworkers one evening; the latter grows jealous and suspicious of her husband after meeting Laura (Eva Mendes), one of his business partners of whom he’s never spoken despite having flown to LA with her for a prior business trip. Reconciling later that night the … Continue reading
Insidious can be described as “two-thirds of a great film”, which damns it far more than a purely negative critique ever could. Coming from the co-creator of the Saw franchise James Wan’s fourth film is scary in a way that most contemporary horror pictures are not, either by consequence or by design; it’s cinema that … Continue reading
You’ve probably never heard of Charles Bronson– not the real Charles Bronson, but rather Michael Peterson, who adopted the name of the famous action icon on the advice of his fighting promoter as a way of inflating his own icon and bolstering his status as a man not to be trifled with. His story is … Continue reading
There’s really no way around the blatant awfulness and stupidity of Tron Legacy. Apologists may fashion an array of defenses to shield it from criticism, which is fine and all except that this kind of picture is indefensible. From all angles, it’s a mess; it’s bloated but explains far too little, it’s an action spectacle … Continue reading
I realize that in a few months time, I’ll be cobbling together a top ten list for 2011 as I’ve done for the past two years that A Constant Visual Feast has been up and running. But 2011 has been a good year cinematically, for me specifically and for film in general; I’ve seen more … Continue reading
It’s known that certain varieties of genre movies tend to be bestowed enormous levels of leeway in the departments of story and structure so long as their central drawing elements are done well. Take modern inventively gruesome and envelope-pushing horror films, which gorehounds may rate based on the creativity of their wanton visceral displays and … Continue reading
Meek’s Cutoff feels something like an oddity in the western genre, and I mean that in the best way possible. There’s no denying the western influences clearly embedded in its cinematic DNA; Kelly Reichardt’s fourth feature very much draws from that celluloid tradition, but she’s not telling a story about cowboys and Indians or marshals … Continue reading
Drive— which I flat-out loved— marks the sort of film that oozes with stylishness but only as a means to an end. Nicolas Winding Refn’s neo-noir crime thriller brandishes a clear and unabashed devotion to aesthetic, design, and attitude which at a cursory glanced could be interpreted as the director’s emphasis on style over substance, … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 