“Just about everybody likes to be scared, and October is the time of year when we all become horror fans for thirty one dreadfully gleeful days. But not every horror movie is built to be scary. Some of them are totally gonzo pictures that indulge their peculiarities. Some of them are sly comedy commentaries on the … Continue reading
Unsettling tales of terror and stories of love both requited and not make up the bulk of The Criterion Collection’s October release slate. (Via Paste Magazine.)
“It’s only October and Room, the latest film from Irish director Lenny Abrahamson, is already the subject of much Oscar buzzing and hyping. If the chatter feels premature, it’s only because of the film’s recent win at the Toronto International Film Festival, where TIFF-goers bestowed it with the coveted People’s Choice Award; six out of … Continue reading
“Apart from a wasted C-plot, “Walk the Swine” sees The Muppets continuing on the same course correcting trajectory as “Pig Out.” That episode, perhaps more than the three that precede it, brimmed over with the sort of Muppety humor we expect from any narrative that revolved around them; what it lacked in forward momentum, it … Continue reading
“Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack sounds like the stuff of fiction on paper, but, of course, the film is drawn from real life. The doc tells the story of the Angulo clan, a family living in a Lower East Side apartment in New York City, though “living” doesn’t quite describe their delimited existence. The Angulo children … Continue reading
“The worst thing about “Halloween III” is that it’s predictable. The best thing is that the predictability doesn’t matter. In this, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s third annual All Hallow’s Eve showdown between Jake and Holt, the episode’s madcap essence is what matters most, though there’s plenty worth cheering about as regards the substance of the story, too. … Continue reading
“Extraordinary Tales, a seasonal piece of spookery by Raul Garcia, means well but haunts only half-heartedly. The film is a meta-monument to the works of Boston-born, Baltimore-dead Gothic-Romantic wunderkind Edgar Allan Poe, chiefly his short stories but with a side helping of poems: “Annabel Lee” and “A Dream Within a Dream” start us off alongside … Continue reading
“Hou Hsiao-Hsien made a wuxia film. That career choice makes logical sense in a vacuum: Hou is positively obsessed with history, and history, more so than fantasy, is wuxia’s bread and butter. But there’s little in Hou’s body of work aside from his preoccupation with the past to suggest an interest in swordplay. He’s made … Continue reading
“Religion has played at least a subtle role in The Bastard Executioner from the beginning, but “Behold the Lamb/Gweled yr Oen” puts the misdeeds of the church at its forefront. Maybe that can’t be helped: the return of that dastardly archdeacon naturally courts episode-shaping discussions of God and belief, which begin immediately as Toran struggles … Continue reading
“If you’ve felt that Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s third season has underused Amy Santiago and Rosa Diaz, now we know why: They’re too busy passing their juicier cases on to Major Crimes and putting together The Vulture’s social events for him. The former ignominy, at least, is one the entire squad suffers, but “The Oolong Slayer” treats … Continue reading
“Is horror the genre that’s best suited for the anthology format? Think hard, just for a moment or two: How many movies outside of horror’s bailiwick can you drum up offhand that come wrapped up as an omnibus? Turn to comedy and you can rifle off titles like The Kentucky Fried Movie, Everything You Always … Continue reading
“Don’t buy a ticket to Crimson Peak expecting a horror movie. Buy a ticket expecting a Guillermo del Toro movie. Your mileage with the film will improve exponentially, sort of like if you traded in your Bentley for a Tesla. With del Toro, “horror” is a misleading label applied mostly by critics and film geeks. … Continue reading
“A couple weeks have passed since Roland Emmerich released his latest disaster flick, Stonewall, to the outrage of the gay community, the transgender community, the Ron Perlman fanboy community, the film critic community and probably the “outraged over outrage” community, too. Maybe we should have seen the uproar coming. Emmerich is not the man you … Continue reading
“Tough luck for all you Lowry/Wilkin shippers: You ship is still anchored at port. Those two crazy kids haven’t knocked boots yet, which is surprising, and not in equal measure. We’re only six (technically five, if you count the pilot as a single entity) episodes into The Bastard Executioner’s opera of suffering and misery, too … Continue reading
“The bright side of last week’s terrible episode The Muppets is that this week’s looks downright terrific by comparison. That’s not to say “Pig Out,” our fourth venture into ABC Muppetsterritory, is bad television, or even good television: It’s adequate, which is a godsend after “Bear Left Then Write” failed to tell a story, or … Continue reading
“What do you want out of your sitcom? Twenty two-ish minutes of escalating hilarity that, in the end, ties everything up as neatly as a bow knotted by Martha Stewart’s own fastidious hands? Do you want to invest yourself in the characters, or is pointlessly chuckling your chief concern? Are you interested in material with … Continue reading
“There are two integral components to any review ofBeasts of No Nation: Its identity as a piece of art and its identity as a product of an industry experiencing post-millennial growing pains. “Netflix presents a Netflix original film,” the credits tell us before ticking off requisite hat tips to the project’s other participating bodies. Strictly … Continue reading
“Mexico has had a problem with drug cartels for decades, but the country’s drug war didn’t officially start until Felipe Calderón ordered a battalion of troops to Michoacán for the dispensal of indiscriminate justice in 2006. You can trace the fallout of Calderón martial intervention either through good old fashioned journalism or U.S. pop culture: … Continue reading
“When Joe Wright’s Pan moves its setting away from London and into Neverland, Peter (Levi Miller), not yet the hero we know he becomes, steps out onto the deck of a flying pirate ship to observe a strip mine jammed with filthy children singing a shanty song that sounds an awful lot like “Smells Like … Continue reading
The best Wes Anderson movie ever made, Bruce Beresford’s most accomplished and well-recognized works, top-drawer De Palma, and more in September’s Criterion round-up. (Via Paste Magazine.)
A Constant Visual Feast 