“If you crack a history book to brush up on the Stonewall riots, you might stumble across the names of gay and transgender activists Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Marsha P. Johnson. If, once you’ve finished your fact checking, you decide to take a peek at the cast list for Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall, an … Continue reading
“Mississippi Grind is a low-stakes movie about high-stakes people who flirt with life and death. Films about gamblers tend toward the tragic more often than they do the comedic (Ocean’s Elevenfilms notwithstanding), butMississippi Grind never quite imposes a sense of danger to its lead Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn), even when he receives text messages from a … Continue reading
“Effigies and snakes; that’s all The Bastard Executioner deigns to give us this week, all instances of rhinectomy aside. Annora’s growing collection of artisanal hanging serpents are probably the least important detail in “Effigy/Delw” (pronounced “del-oo”), but the sight of them suspended in air, gently lit by the blaze of her torch, does give the … Continue reading
“If there’s one question the cardinal season of The Muppets absolutely must answer, it’s this: What’s to be gained by filtering the antics and ennui of Kermit and co. through the lens of the office docu-comedy? We’re used to seeing these characters set against a vaudevillian backdrop or within the parameters of familiar movie genres—road … Continue reading
“Writer-director John Magary’s debut feature, The Mend, begins with scenes of domestic discord as brothers Mat (Josh Lucas) and Alan (Stephen Plunkett) each engage their significant others in alternately vague and explicit spats. After some boisterous afternoon delight with girlfriend Andrea (Lucy Owen), Mat invites her rage off-screen before she kicks him out of her … Continue reading
Zombies, man: They just keep coming, no matter what you do. The hordes of shambling dead are as popular today as they’ve ever been, largely thanks to the massive popularity and cultural ubiquity of AMC’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s longstanding comic book series The Walking Dead. Granted, the zombie genre tends to cycle through peaks and valleys of … Continue reading
In Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s psychological horror stunner Goodnight Mommy, twin brothers Lukas and Elias (Lukas Schwarz and Elias Schwarz) spend their days in isolated idyll in the Austrian countryside, collecting bugs and playing hide-and-seek in cornfields while they wait for their mother to return home following intensive facial surgery. When she does, the … Continue reading
“James “Whitey” Bulger terrorized Boston as the boss of the Winter Hill Gang from the 1970s until the 1990s, went into hiding in 1994, fell into FBI custody in 2011, and now, thanks to filmmaker Scott Cooper, he’s stalking multiplexes in the gangster film Black Mass. For Cooper, the movie marks his third plum gig … Continue reading
“The clash of steel you hear in the two-part pilot for The Bastard Executioner, erstwhile Sons of Anarchy showrunner Kurt Sutter’s new FX passion project, isn’t just the sound of men crossing swords: It’s the sound of Sutter throwing down a gore-stained gauntlet somewhere in the vicinity of George R.R. Martin’s boots. A review of … Continue reading
“Nothing’s more effective at shaking a teen out of their monotonous high school routine than the arrival of a new student. That’s the stuff actress/director Mélanie Laurent’s sophomore film, Breathe, is made of: mystery and allure, with generous dollops of adolescent rivalry, sexual awakening and verbal abuse spooned on top. Think of Breatheas a distant … Continue reading
“Some cult flicks take decades to germinate in the hearts and minds of schlock enthusiasts, while others announce themselves right away. Director Brian James O’Connell’s Bloodsucking Bastards could easily fall under the latter category, provided it finds the right audience to embrace it. That shouldn’t be too difficult: It stars Fran Kranz, a Joss Whedon … Continue reading
Woefully unsung Truffaut, classic and influential film noir from the great Jules Dassin, and Karel Reisz’s wonderful film adaptation of an unfilmable novel take the spotlight in August’s Criterion round-up. (Via Paste Magazine.)
“Who better than Alex Gibney to profile Steve Jobs? Well, probably plenty of directors, but still: Gibney has a reputation as an incisive, no-nonsense documentarian with a keen mind for layered investigation and an impressive bullshit detector. He’s also old hat at dissolving the facade of celebrity—as in his 2013 picture, The Armstrong Lie—and at … Continue reading
“The Neolithic Hongshan of China, Cambodia’s Khmer Empire, the inhabitants of Pakistan’s Indus Valley, the Anasazi—cultures up and vanish all the time in world history. And as tragic as the loss of these cultures may be, it might be more tragic that in certain cases we’re not even sure what, exactly, happened to them. Solving … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 