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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Charlie Kaufman finds new ways to stretch the imagination with stop-motion character study 'Anomalisa'. A tender piece on insecurity and the mundanity of human relations, Kaufman's latest mind-trip is as…
An offense to good taste and good war cinema, '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Bengazhi' is a shameless exploitation of recent history. Michael Bay has tactless cracks at action…
I feel like Denzel Washington at the Globes. I have a speech prepared but I forgot my reading glasses. I guess I’ll thank my family for giving me the courage to predict the Academy Award nominees. And, of course, I’d like to thank the Academy. But in all seriousness, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts...
This morning, the Seattle Film Critics’ Survery unleashed their winners and it was Mad Max: Fury Road who took the proverbial cake and ate it too. Curated by Should I See It‘s Mike Ward, the full press release is included below: “George Miller’s post-apocalyptic epic Mad Max: Fury Road steamrolled the competition, and was named the Best...
Every year, us adamant movie bloggers have a tradition of predicting not only the winners of the Academy Awards but the actual nominees. Does it sound like sheer insanity? Of course it does! It’s tilting at windmills. Nothing more. Nonetheless, we labor to push the proverbial rock up the hill eternal, shooting blindly into the...