Out in Theaters: ‘LIFE’
Recipe for Daniel Espinosa’s ‘Life’: Steal Alien. Glaze with modern CGI. Lift all signs of horror and tension. Add big marque names. Give them nothing to do. Dose with a heavy-hand…
REVIEW
REVIEW
Out in Theaters: ‘T2 TRAINSPOTTING’
Like a shot of cinema to the main vein, 'T2 Trainspotting' is a lively and thoughtful companion piece to Boyle’s darkly comedic addiction saga. Choose strong performances, choose a rocking playlist,…
INTERVIEW
Talking with Olivier Assayas of ‘PERSONAL SHOPPER’
Man of vision Olivier Assayas is not your average filmmaker. The Parisian director is the kind of filmmaker that makes critics blush, his last feature Clouds of Sils Maria making its way onto a sizable share of Critic Top Ten Lists circa 2014/15. Dedicated to making bold, often female-led poetic musings, Assayas is celebrated for...
FESTIVAL
SXSW ’17 Review: ‘TRAGEDY GIRLS’
Mean Girls meets Scream in Tyler MacIntyre’s trendy satirical midnight horror-comedy Tragedy Girls. Like Heathers for the social media age, MacIntyre’s coming-of-age serial killer misadventure satirizes iPhone-obsessed culture as two popular girls go on a killing spree in order to gain followers, accrue likes and establish a brand. A fucked-up ode to friendship first and foremost,...
INTERVIEW
Talking with Mark Webber of ‘FLESH AND BLOOD’
Fans of the darker side of cinema may recognize Mark Webber from last year’s excellent Green Room where Mark played a Nazi trying (and failing) to defect from a gnarly order of backwoods skinheads but his roots in the film world run deeper than you’d think at first glance. A seasoned actor and filmmaker both,...
FESTIVAL
SXSW ’17 Review: ‘WIN IT ALL’
A more lovable loser there may not be than Jake Johnson’s Eddie Garrett in Win It All. The 18th (!!!) feature from mumblecore originator Joe Swanberg, Win It All is the second “official” collaboration between Swanberg and Johnson, who paired up last year to middling success with Digging for Fire after previously working in a...
FESTIVAL
SXSW ’17 Review: ‘SMALL TOWN CRIME’
The great John Hawkes was relegated to character actor status for far too long. That wiry, weaselly-looking fella who’s cropped in all those movies and tv shows you love who you can never put a name to? It’s probably John Hawkes. In 2010, Hawkes received some long overdo attention with an Academy Award nominee for...
FESTIVAL
SXSW ’17 Review: ‘THE DISASTER ARTIST’
There in perhaps no film in existence that better exemplifies “cult” status than Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. A titanic miff on every level imaginable, Wiseau’s self-produced “romantic drama” is often called the worst movie ever made. And rightfully so. Anyone who’s had the privilege of witnessing this filmic trainwreck is treated to a level of...
FESTIVAL
SXSW ’17 Review: ‘THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA’
Stories based on a true story often face the detriment of audiences knowing how it’s all going to end. That will certainly be the case for many with The Most Hated Woman in America, the decade-spanning biopic/thriller focused on controversial public figure Madalyn Murray O’Hair, but it’s people like me (of the millennial variety) who...
FESTIVAL
SXSW ’17 Review: ‘GAME OF DEATH’
Upon reading that Game of Death was an amalgam of a web series stitched together into a feature, I feared the worst. The formats, though not incongruous, ostensibly serve different ends – one drives towards a rollercoaster of micro-climaxes, the other tells a rounded whole narrative arc. It’s a case of a dozen acts versus...