Talking With Kevin Bacon of COP CAR

To promote his new film Cop Car, a thinly plotted but hugely enjoyable genre flick that mixes suspense and high violence with a coming-of-age bent [review here], Kevin Bacon was in town, hitting the Seattle International Film Festival red carpet in style. After talking briefly about who he’d choose to bequeath the honor of Six Degrees of Bacon upon (other Kevin actors: Spacey, Klein, etc.) Kevin and I talked being Kevin Bacon, playing cops, not being pigeon-holed or type-cast, crafting a character from little dialogue, jumping back and forth from movies to television and not watching his old movies.

Out in Theaters: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.

August 12, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer, Elizabeth Debicki, Guy Ritchie, Henry Cavill, Hugh Grant, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Leave a comment

Guy Ritchie is the Rembrandt of slick action capers. His signature twisty-turny plotting suggests a much more reined-in Shyamalan while his carefully syncopated, pop-art action beats share a locker with contemporaries Zack Snyder and Matthew Vaughn. From Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Ritchie has operated within a comparable sandbox, utilizing a very similar set of stock tools within shifting budgetary constraints. With The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Ritchie has set aside his signature accoutrements for something with an embarrassment of cinematic fervor. His latest creation is chic and classic, timely yet timeless, shiny on the surface with rich characters driving the engine underneath. This much fun is rare at the theaters. Read More

Talking With Jemaine Clement of PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS

August 12, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Flight of the Conchords, Interviews, James Strouse, Jemaine Clement, People Places Things, The Big Friendly Giant, What We Do in the Shadows 1 Comment

Jemaine Clement, introverted funnyman that he is, has an awkward charm to him that escapes most of his Hollywood peers. He’s coy with his comedy, firing off in quiet bursts rather than erupting like an attention-whoring lime light volcano. In short, his timidness is his strongest weapon. Read More

Out in Theaters: PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS

August 12, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Jemaine Clement, Jessica Williams, Jim Strouse, Michael Chernus, Out in Theaters, People Places Things, Regina Hall, Reviews 1 Comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review.

Having retired from his role as the Hiphopopotamus, Jemaine Clement frequents our living rooms and theaters all too infrequently. His 2014 cameo in Muppets Most Wanted didn’t nearly suffice to fill our favorite Kiwi quotient and we’ve yet to take in his lauded vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows [Editor’s note: we’ve now seen Shadows. We loved it.] Nor can we really kid ourselves into believing that Clement’s existence beyond Flight of the Concords has been far-reaching – though his role as Boris the Animal was an easy highlight of Men in Black 3 and tapped into his unrealized Hollywood potential. So it’s with a heaving sigh of relief that we can announce that Clement has finally been given a role worthy of his gawky stature in the delightful, funny and tender People, Places, Things. Read More

Out in Theaters: THE BOY

August 12, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Craig William Macneill, David Morse, Horror, Jared Breeze, Out in Theaters, Rainn Wilson, Reviews, The Boy Leave a comment

*This is a reprint of our SXSW 2015 review.

Ted (Jared Breeze) is a serial killer in the making. He’s only nine years old but all the warning signs are there in Craig William Macneill’s slow burning but explosively rewarding motion picture. Like the great unmade redneck prequel to The Good Son, The Boy shows the quiet transformation of ennui to psychosis as an immeasurably bored towhead graduates from coaxing animals to their death to killing them outright before finally setting his sights on his own genus and gene pool. Read More

DVD Review: MATCH

August 11, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Blu-Ray/DVD Reviews Tagged DVD Review, Match, Patrick Stewart, Steve Belber Leave a comment

Synopsis: “A successful Manhattan ballet instructor and former dancer must confront his past when two fans with mysterious motives display some fancy footwork in the compelling drama Match. Steve Belber’s film, based on his Tony-nominated play, stars Patrick Stewart, Carla Gugino and Matthew Lillard who each give captivating performances in this witty, emotionally gripping adaptation of the play. Stewart stars as Tobi, an eccentric, pot-smoking Manhattan ballet instructor whose quiet life is interrupted by the arrival of a young couple from Seattle. They are presumably there to interview Tobi about his colorful life as a dancer in the 1960s. But as Tobi spins salacious tales from his early days, an ulterior motive for the couple’s visit emerges, forcing the trio to confront a secret that may connect them all.” Read More

DVD Review: INNER DEMONS

August 11, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Blu-Ray/DVD Reviews Tagged DVD Reviews, Horror, Lara Vosburgh, Seth Grossman Leave a comment

Synopsis: “When Carson (mesmerizing newcomer Lara Vosburgh), the teenaged daughter of a religious family, transforms from straight-A student into heroin addict, her parents agree to allow a reality TV show crew to stage an intervention and document her recovery. But what they don’t know is that she has been taking drugs to deal with the unnatural, evil feelings that have been growing inside of her. And when she agrees to rehab, with no drugs to suppress that malevolent force, she and everyone around her will find themselves in mortal danger from an entity far worse than they could ever imagine. From Seth Grossman, director of The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations and producer of the reality show Intervention, INNER DEMONS explores the blurry lines between addiction, possession and mental illness, and refreshes the horror genre with a grounded, layered story of a girl’s battle against demonic possession.” Read More

Out in Theaters: FANTASTIC FOUR

August 6, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Jamie Bell, Josh Trank, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Out in Theaters, Reg E. Cathey, Reviews, The Fantastic Four, Toby Kebbell Leave a comment

My feelings for Fox’s rebooted Fantastic Four property, much like the film itself, are all over the place. With director Josh Trank squaring the focus on the men and women (or, in this case, boys and girls) behind the powers, Fantastic Four had the opportunity to be, at the very least, something different from the crop of annual superhero movies, those with their quick quips and even quicker action beats hogging the entirety of the run time. If they got it right, you leave the theater wide-eyed and sugar rushing, “When’s the next one?” Fantastic Four is not that movie…until it is. And then it tries so hard to be just that that it ends up cutting its nose to spite its face. Read More

Out in Theaters: DARK PLACES

August 6, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christina Hendricks, Corey Stoll, Dark Places, Gilles Paquet-Brenner, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Tye Sheridan 3 Comments

The charge for any movie based upon a popular novel is two-fold. First, they must remain faithful to the source material. You can’t have a writer bandying critical alterations in plot or character, lest they invite the chagrin of a million swarming fanboys, ready with pitchforks and sub-reddit comments. Secondly, they must inject some modicum of vision into the material. To transform a novel into a film without tact or some place of purpose is to present an audience with a run-down of in-book events without much-needed personality or intent. Think James Franco adapting Faulkner or Angelina Jolie taking on “Unbroken”. They failed because they were “adaptations” and nothing more; they changed the medium, but lost the soul. Read More

Talking With Jason Segel of THE END OF THE TOUR

August 5, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged David Foster Wallace, End of the Tour, Interviews, James Ponsoldt, Jason Segel Leave a comment

At the risk of forever emasculating myself, I’ll admit that after seeing the End of the Tour, I wept. I broke down into meaty sobs on the blustery streets of Park City, Utah. There was this pounding feeling of despair that washed over me that I just couldn’t shake. Bleary-eyed and shell-shocked, I wept for humanity, and it’s all James Ponsoldt and Jason Segel’s fault. Read More