There’s a flicker of hope early on in Reversal. A scuzzy captive batters her captor, gaining the upper hand and chaining him in the very binds she was kept in for who knows how long. She scours the house for car keys, stumbling upon a folder filled with Polaroids of similarly imprisoned females. She rages...
Last year, Patrick Brice showed up to SXSW with Creep. Devilishly crafty and expertly focused, it fell in with the usual suspects of found footage horror, even though it was so much more than just another point and shoot, “gotcha!” scare effort. The natural tension that Brice was able to tease out of a scene...
There are so many pivot points in Z for Zachariah that it becomes hard to nail down exactly what director Craig Zobel intended for it. At one point, it seems decidedly about gender politics, at another about race relations, and eventually it boiled down to themes of suspicion, greed and jealousy. Spliced with a domineering...
What do 1630, a silver cup, Christian fervor and a goat named Black Phillip have in common? The Witch. Unholy goodness through and through, Robert Egger‘s feature film debut is a horror masquerading as a costume drama that’s as beady, black and misshapen as the center of a goat’s eye. Beneath the dirt-stained, leather-bound waistcoats,...
Of all the issues I had with A Walk in the Woods (our review) – the telling of Bill Bryson’s failure to complete the Appalachian Trail – Nick Nolte was not amongst them. In fact, he was the solitary beacon of hope shining through a film that otherwise stank of mediocrity. After the screening, the...
To put a pin in the beauty of The End of the Tour is a philosophical venture potentially as challenging as James Ponsoldt‘s latest accomplishment. Detailing a three-day exchange between Rolling Stones journalist David Lipsky and rock star author David Foster Wallace, Ponsoldt’s film is talky and emotionally whirling, thick with dry-mouthed moments and cemented...
Robert Redford‘s adaptation of Bill Bryson‘s popular 1998 memoir A Walk In the Woods is an unremarkable journey with a short sprinkling of low-key chuckles and a heaving dose of schmaltzy sentiment. As Redford’s travel companion, co-star Nick Nolte manages to give this low-percolating buddy comedy/road-movie-on-foot at least some minor footing, but its not enough...
Step Up's Guzman is awful in the leading man's shoes, all kinds of ham and cheese in a role that might have even thrived in the hands of a Dan…
As of publication, I’ve clocked in 242 2014 films. It’s a fitting number, one that isn’t totally, completely, batshit crazy. Ok, maybe it is. Of those 242, I have culled a list of 100 films that’re more than worthy of your attention. This handcrafted numerical scroller has been designed with the kind of meticulous craft...
This week has been absolutely insane what with playing catch-up to all the big awards films I missed on my holiday, cracking out a Top Ten of 2014 List, a 50 Most Anticipated Films of 2015 list, Oscar Nominations Predictions, Oscar Nominations Reactions, Seattle Critics Film Awards and drafting reviews of Michael Mann‘s horrible Blackhat, the...