Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
Natalia Tena has crafted a career out of playing odd tertiary characters. From playing Tonks in the Harry Potter films to giving life to Osha in Game of Thrones, she’s known for her involvement with geek culture mainstays. But strip away the fluctuating neon hair and the dirty Wildling face and Tena is a true beauty and a massive talent – a fact proven by her absolutely knockout performance in Carlos Marques-Marcet’s superb 10,000 KM [review here]. Read More
After premiering at SXSW 2014 to rave reviews, Carlos Marques-Marcet‘s 10,000 KM has gone on to win the hearts and minds of festival filmgoers the world over. With a wide-spread limited release platform that sees 10,000 KM opening in 11 cities across the U.S. – a statistic that executive producer Pau Brunet called, “Pretty much a major release for this kind of movie,” With its weekend release to domestic theaters from New York to San Francisco, we’ve dredged up this year-old interview, one that’s aged like a fine wine. Read More
Tarsem Singh is an tough cookie to crack. On the one hand, he’s hailed as a visionary director; a masterful craftsman of colorful aesthetics and esoteric tone. And yet, his catalog of works is filled with laudable, though often graceless, misfires. From 2000’s J Lo-starrer The Cell to sword ‘n’ sandals CGI-fest Immortals (which seemed little more than 300-lite) and onward to his recent Snow White comedy Mirror Mirror, Singh hardly has one entry in his portfolio to unequivocally celebrate. Nor has he really delivered a true stinker. That trend continues in 2015 with a thinking man’s actioner that forgot the thinking man aspect with Self/Less.
Terminator: Genisys, or How to Waste 170 Million Dollars, is a righteously obsolete sequel; a feckless manure cache more dedicated to nostalgia as computer animated gimmick, patchy, gravity-ignorant FX and slinky-esque “gotcha!” twists than little things like plot, internal consistency and character development. To call Terminator: Not a Word a failure would be to acknowledge that it even tried to succeed in the first place. And let’s be honest here, Terminator 5 tried not. Read More
In 2012, Steven Soderbergh accomplished the impossible by making audiences – made up of various chromosome compositions – fall in love with a ragtag scrap of male strippers. Magic Mike not only dominated the box office – netting north of 113 million dollars domestically on a 7 million dollar production budget – but won the hearts and minds of critics, who rewarded the film with a 80% Rotten Tomato score. All signs pointed swiftly towards the birth of a new franchise centered around denuding men with real world issues. Women (and some men) rejoiced; ’twas raining men. Read More
I won’t easily admit to being one to be star-stuck but let’s just say I have developed a life-long BFF crush on Jason Schwartzman. From his debut in Wes Anderson’s electric Rushmore (and onward through a certifiable library of Anderson films) to his cult HBO amateur detective comedy Bored to Death to his truly standout indie-rock band Coconut Records (seriously, listen to them. They’re great) I would count myself amongst the Schwartz’s dedicated fanboys. Having the chance to speak with him not once, not twice but three times over a weekend proved my long-time suspicion: the dude is also an incredibly nice guy. Read More
Prepare for weed jokes, hairy sight gags, unbridled misogyny, celebrity cameos, unchecked homophobia, Goose Island product placement, wiener jokes, sperm jokes, boob jokes, period jokes, Bud Lite product placement, lame-brained pop culture references, more weed jokes, mean-spirited black people jokes, more Goose Island product placement, slut shaming, nerd lampooning, Boston jokes, ASU jokes, and a near gleeful amount of hate because Ted 2, the somehow anticipated sequel to 2011’s near awful foul-mouthed CG teddy bear buddy comedy, is finally here. It is also, without a doubt, the worst film of the year. Read More
Obviously Max, the Air Bud of Middle ‘Murica ethics, is no good. A fly-over state moral play coached in Christian values and wartime oorah, Boaz Yakin’s family-friendly wag of the tail falters connecting with non-faith audience members but, worse still, fails to coalesce into a meaningful, cogent piece of cinema in its own right. Character motivations are thinner than a newspaper page with the stumbling centerpiece performances coming off as nothing short of tacky. That being the case, the titular dog Max gave one might performance; ’twas the most convincing one of the film. Read More
