Sundance ’16 Review: ‘CAPTAIN FANTASTIC’

January 24, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Ann Dowd, Captain Fantastic, Charlie Shotwell, Frank Langella, Kathryn Hahn, Matt Ross, Reviews, Steve Zahn, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews, Viggo Mortensen 1 Comment

With Captain Fantastic, writer/director Matt Ross has tapped enlightenment like a spigot into a maple tree and funneled it into crowd-pleasing dramedy. With a first-rate cast that includes Viggo Mortensen, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Frank Langella and Ann Dowd, Ross’ second feature shows a filmmaker emerging with a booming voice, immediately confident enough to corral such talent into one articulate, sarcastic and smartly realized vision. The result is a righteously comic and deeply-felt examination of a family experimenting with life on the fringes of society. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘GREEN ROOM’

January 24, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alia Shawkat, Anton Yelchin, Callum Turner, Green Room, Imogen Poots, Jeremy Saulnier, Joe Cole, Mark Webber, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews 3 Comments

Hot from the critical heralding of Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier returns to the world of white trash and movies with colors in their title with Green Room. An ultraviolet fantasy of viscus and vengeance, Green Room is as unapologetic as a Misfits album, as dead-serious as a KKK rally and as boastfully savage as a scalping. Characters find themselves torn to kibble by attack dogs, slashed to crimson ropes by box cutters and blasted in the face at point blank range with shotguns. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘GOAT’

January 24, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Andrew Neel, Ben Schnetzer, Brad Land, David Gordon Green, Goat, James Franco, Nick Jonas, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews 1 Comment

Goat harrowingly explores the hypocrisy of fraternal brotherhood, bearing witness to the ugly rights of passage that men must submit to into order to earn their badge of masculinity. In Andrew Neel‘s testosterone-fueled melodrama, ideas of modern masculinity are examined through the lens of the Phi Sigma Mu fraternity of the fictitious Brookman University as new arriving “goats” (that’s pledges to those who don’t speak frat) are victim to a brutal “hell week”. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘MORRIS FROM AMERICA’

January 23, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Carla Juri, Chad Hartigan, Craig Robinson, Lina Keller, Markees Christmas, Morris From America, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews 1 Comment

Debuting in a time where discussion on race in American cinema is at an absolute fever pitch, Morris From America explores the idea of cultural and personal identity through the lens of a 13-year old black aspiring free-styler living with his father (Craig Robinson) in the little white-washed German village of Heidelberg. Directed by Chad Hartigan, who won Sundance’s Best of Next prize in 2013 for This is Martin Bonner, Morris may be relatively light viewing but with fine performances across the board and a semi-charmed approach to talking about race and culture, Morris is a crowd-pleasing success story that could find love outside the festival circuit. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE’

January 23, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Julian Dennison, Rachel House, Reviews, Rhys Darby, Rima Te Wiata, Sam Neill, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews, Taika Waititi 6 Comments

Taika Waititi‘s oddball Hunt for the Wilderpeople continues the Kiwi director’s aggressive expansion into the mainstream while still maintaining his goofy, grinning, soft-centered tendencies. Coming off the roaring critical success of vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, Wilderpeople is a more grounded venture (but then again, what isn’t?) that maintains Waititi’s ironic and largely innocent sense of humor while injecting a fair measure of heart into the affair. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘SWISS ARMY MAN’

January 23, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Daniel Kwan, Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Scheinert, Paul Dano, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews, Swiss Army Man 7 Comments

Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan‘s (A.K.A. The Daniels) flatulence-fueled, sea-stranded mind trip is a totally bonkers, emotionally decadent spirit quest to the weirdest corners of reality. A man and a corpse test the boundaries of friendship and filmmaking in this boundlessly creative, wildly original tramp sure to shock any lucky enough to cross its odd path. Rich thematic elements of self-discovery and questionable sexuality slam the rocky shoals of excessive farting, boners-that-think-for-themselves and general farcical bombast in this absolutely absurd sketch; one that could only come from the minds of former music video director gurus like The Daniels. Swiss Army Man is uncompromisingly weird and goddamn if I didn’t respect the hell out of that fact. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘WILD’

January 22, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Lillith Stangenberg, Nicolette Krebitz, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews, Wild Leave a comment

Wild, or 50 Shades of Grey Wolf, is Germany’s erotic response to Beauty and the Beast. If the beast were a feral wolf and beauty his captor. Like an anarchistic misinterpretation of To Catch a Predator, the German feature from Berlin-native Nicolette Krebitz finds a dissatisfied Ania (Lillith Stangenberg) serendipitously strike up a relationship with a city-dwelling wolf that develops into an obsession after she traps it in her high-rise apartment. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘THE FREE WORLD’

January 22, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Boyd Halbrook, Elisabeth Moss, Half of a Yellow Sun, Jason Lew, Octavia Spencer, Reviews, Sundance 2016 Leave a comment

Jason Lew presents a bleak world of second chances and doomed romance in impact drama The Free World. Lew’s feature gives a Bonnie and Clyde twist to the “Romeo and Juliet” story and those willing to overlook some obvious symbolism will find a feature rich in subtext and striking performances. Featuring the always phenomenal Elisabeth Moss and a breakout performance from Boyd Halbrook as a pair of social outcasts who’ve found each other (and themselves) on the wrong side of the law – one an ex-con, the other the (ex-)wife of a violent cop – The Free World explores the spiritual poetry of redemption and religion through the lens of besting your former shadow. To quote Hemingway, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility to being superior to your former self.” Again, this idea of self-transcendence isn’t necessarily broached with a fistful of subtlety but the thematic elements are bolstered by the two convincing, whirlwind performances at its center. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘OTHER PEOPLE’

January 22, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Bradley Whitford, Chris Kelly, Jesse Plemons, Molly Shannon, Other People, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews Leave a comment

Other People sets expectations firmly in place early on for its uneven mix of tragedy and comedy. A family huddles in a dark bedroom, some whimpering, some crying out, others silent, all grasping hands, all seeking tendrils of connection, all weeping over a recently departed body. In the midst of this disruptively bleak opening, the landline erupts, echoing through the empty halls. It rings a number of times, awkwardly interrupting the mourning at hand, before clipping to voicemail. Broadcast through the house, a perky female says something to the effect of, “I heard you’re, like, really sick,” and then goes on to sloppily order tacos and Coke at a drive through. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘ANOMALISA’

January 15, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman, David Thewlis, Duke Johnson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Tom Noonan Leave a comment

In Alex Garland’s riveting metaphysical exploration of man’s relationship to machinery Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac’s character Caleb states of his A.I. Ava, “The real test is to show you she is a robot. Then see if you still feel she has consciousness.” A similar theme blooms in Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa, a stop-motion animated drama that explores a day in the midst of a customer service man’s midlife crisis. Read More