“After suffering from post-Twilight defanging since 2008, vampires are on the mend. Last year’s one-two punch of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Only Lovers Left Alive, along with films like Neil Jordan’s underappreciated 2013 joint Byzantium, helped creatures of the night reclaim their teeth on the big screen bit by bit; these … Continue reading
Posted on February 20, 2015 …
Review: Queen and Country, 2015, dir. John Boorman
“You don’t need to watch John Boorman’s 1987 comedy drama Hope and Glory to vibe with its sequel, the decades-in-the-making Queen and Country. That’s probably the greatest feat Boorman pulls off with this follow-up to his unassuming Oscar nominee: walk into the film blind, and short of feeling like you’re up the Thames without a … Continue reading
Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015, dir. Matthew Vaughn
“Remember when spy movies blended melodramatic international intrigue with wacky gadgetry, high adventure, and the good breeding of the gentlemen class? Remember when they weren’t po-faced efforts pressured, perhaps by unreasonable audience demands, into being grounded and gritty, plus any number of tepid industry buzzwords? Matthew Vaughn does, and for that matter so does comic … Continue reading
Review: Wyrmwood, 2015, dir. Kiah Roache-Turner
“Here’s some sound advice for when the zombie apocalypse arrives: surround yourself with Australians. Assuming you’re not one of the first to turn in the world-ending plague of undeath, being in the company of folks from the land Down Under is a surefire way to ensure your safety once your friends’ and neighbors’ shambling corpses … Continue reading
TV Review: Agent Carter, 1.07, “Snafu”
“Funny, isn’t it, that Agent Carter focuses so much on the quest to retrieve Howard Stark’s bad babies, yet we know so little about them; we don’t know what they are, and with a couple of outside exceptions (a’la Stark’s nitramene formula) we don’t know what they do. In “Snafu,”e though, the babies almost become … Continue reading
TV Review: Agent Carter, 1.06, “A Sin to Err”
“Agent Carter has been building to “A Sin to Err” all season long; it’s the moment where the walls have Peggy corralled. She’s pretty much on her own and without a single person, other than Jarvis, to call “friend,” though that more or less sums up her dynamic over the course of the show. But … Continue reading