Out in Theaters: THE SUMMER HOUSE

August 26, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Out in Theaters, Uncategorized Tagged Curtis Burz, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Summer House 1 Comment

The Summer House is one of those “look how f*cked up the rich are so that the rest of us can feel better about not having any money because at least we’re good people” bones we get thrown so often at the cinema these days. This time around, behind the curtain of the “seemingly put-together” family of three stands a father who, while extraordinarily resourceful in business and prudent in financial planning, conceals a nasty predilection for young boys. Oh yeah, it’s a pedophile movie as well. Read More

Talking With Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk of MERU

August 14, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Interviews, Uncategorized Tagged Conrad Anker, Interviews, Meru, Renan Ozturk Leave a comment

Meru, the new documentary by, of, and for the mountain climbers is a true labor of love [our review here]. In 2011, three lifelong friends, Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, Renan Ozturk, set out to tackle one of the most death-defying peaks on t he planet, the Shark’s Fin on the Himalayas’ Mount Meru. And they brought cameras in their pockets. Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk were kind enough to take some time out of their un-relatably courageous climbing schedules to have a refreshingly un-Hollywood, non-slick chat with me about filmmaking as a natural extension of the adventure, how to make sure the cameras don’t weigh so much that the rations suffer, what most mountain movies get wrong, and an old climbers’ lifehack for what to do with that last rind of Parmesan.

Documentary Dossier: MERU

August 14, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Documentaries, Out in Theaters Tagged Conrad Anker, Documentaries, Jimmy Chin, Jon Krakauer, Meru, Out in Theaters, Renan Ozturk, Reviews 2 Comments

“Everest is for f*cking p*ssies, man.” Not an actual quote from the film, but it might be a good one for you to slip in at the next kickback when the conversation inevitably shifts to what documentaries you and your significant other have been watching on Netflix and what you think of the new season of HBO’s (fill in the blank). Meru is about serious climber bros, dudes who casually remark they’ve been to the top of Everest “four or five times” and one of them has even “skied off the top of Everest.” Hell, when you weekend warriors climb Everest “you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks.” (And those are actual quotes.) Read More

Gratuitous Trailer Breakdown: GOOSEBUMPS and the Challenge of Capitalizing on Nostalgia

July 22, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Trailers, Uncategorized Tagged Goosebumps, Gratuitous Trailer Breakdown, Jack Black, R.L. Stine, Tim Jacobus, Trailers Leave a comment

Ok, you’ve had some time to geek out over the nostalgia-gasm that is the new trailer for Goosebumps, right? You’ve splooshed and boi-oi-oinged to the barrage of imagery straight from the pages of R.L. Stine‘s landmark, commercially record-breaking, critically-null epic chronicle of that which lurks beneath the sink and the seemingly mundane life of every kid born between 1983 and 1988 (my apologies to the precocious and the held-back). Read More

Gratuitous Trailer Breakdown: The Return of WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER and the Internet Age of Cult

July 18, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Editorials, Film Editorials, Trailers Tagged Bradley Cooper, Cult Film, Editorials, Gratuitous Trailer Breakdown, Jon Hamm, Netflix, Trailers, Wet Hot American Summer 1 Comment

It’s here! Fourteen years later, we finally return to Camp Firewood (unless you count the 50 or 60 times you’ve watched Wet Hot American Summer as “returning” – which I most certainly do.) In 2001, the parody of 1980s summer-camp-sploitation movies that no one asked for (and if they did they would have asked about twelve years earlier) debuted at Sundance to four sold out crowds and zero buyers. Eventually it was released in approximately 30 cities, made approximately zero money, and was pretty much ignored to death. But that is how legends are born (isn’t it?).