So imagine this: There’s a house, and it’s littered with clocks, but there’s also a clock in its walls and it’s the clock in the walls that everyone’s fussing about. Doesn’t make a ton of real world sense, but it makes plenty of movie world sense, and presto, there you have it, Eli Roth’s The House … Continue reading
Any of my readers out there who call themselves bettin’ types, you’re probably about to rake in a ton of cash: I didn’t care for Ready Player One. Shocker. A movie warped around 80s nostalgia – and around 90s nostalgia, and also random references to cool things from the last ten years – rubbed me the … Continue reading
Try fitting all of that text into your mouth at once. You can’t! It’s a big, beefy title directed by two guys. That’s a lot of verbiage. But what Raiders!: The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made lacks in succinctness it makes up for with compelling storytelling. Messy, compelling storytelling, sure, but storytelling that’s no … Continue reading
Is there a director whose work you just can’t get into, while everyone you know loves and admires them? That’s my experience with Jeff Nichols, who you might know best for his 2011 drama Take Shelter, which is mostly good before it crawls up its own keister in its final scene. With his new film, Midnight Special, … Continue reading
Walking out of Lincoln, you may be struck at the revelation that Honest Abe had a pretty consistent comedic streak running through him. Would you believe that Spielberg’s biopic on one of the US’s greatest leaders happens to be one of the best comedies of 2012? I’m being dishonest, naturally; Lincoln, mired in a bloody stage … Continue reading
(Cross-posted over at GoSeeTalk.) While watching The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, you can feel Spielberg grinning happily on the other side of the camera. It’s a welcome quality; adapting Hergé’s beloved comic books to screen in the first of a planned series of films with collaborator Peter Jackson seems to have brought … Continue reading
J.J. Abrams is short of a single meticulously crafted script before he creates his masterpiece; he knows how to make an entertaining, fulfilling movie that resonates with his audiences, but each of his cinematic endeavors has been hamstrung by virtue of lacking a highly polished, impeccable piece of writing that elevates his work from “good” … Continue reading
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost at this point should be considered the premiere comic duo of our time. Is that fair to say? These English lads– one of their country’s most beloved exports– constitute a twosome which functions organically and a dynamic that requires no employment of shtick to work; they’re funny, individually and together, … Continue reading
Part 2 of my 2011 preview commences…now! (Part 1 can be perused here, at your leisure.) X-Men: First Class— By happy coincidence, the first trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s period prequel to the X-Men franchise hit just last week, and guess what? It looks really good. Focusing specifically on the relationship between Erik Lehnsherr, the man … Continue reading
3D at first slowly, and now much more rapidly, has become the new “it” gimmick in modern filmmaking. 2009 alone has given us numerous films in 3D presentations (Coraline, Up, My Bloody Valentine, The Final Destination*, among others), with more on the way before the year is out and even more still in the years … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 