SXSW ’17 Review: ‘SMALL TOWN CRIME’

March 15, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Anthony Anderson, Clifton Collins Jr., Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms, James Lafferty, Jeremy Ratchford, Octavia Spencer, Robert Forster, Small Town Crime 2 Comments

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 his portrait of an unsettling redneck in Winter’s Bone, helping pave the way for his arrival in Small Town Crime, the excellent neo-noir from writer-director sibling team Eshom and Ian Nelms. Read More

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘THE DISASTER ARTIST’

March 14, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Dave Franco, James Franco, Michael H. Weber, Reviews, Scott Neudstadter, Seth Rogen, SXSW '17, The Disaster Artist 1 Comment

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 incompetence that is almost endearing in its epic failure. If you however are among the many uninitiated, I would suggest you stop reading and run to your nearest video store (assuming it still exists) to grab a copy The Room. I guarantee they have one. Read More

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘BABY DRIVER’

March 13, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Ansel Egort, Baby Driver, Edgar Wright, Eliza González, Jaime Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Kevin Spacey, Reviews, SXSW '17 3 Comments

It’s been a hot minute since Edgar Wright has graced us with his genius. The man responsible for such perfect fare as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Wright has long been a pioneer of the Trojan horse comedy, trafficking highbrow laughs in with genre trappings. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wright is known for his masterful command of visual language, finding laugh-out loud moments in sharp editing, frame composition, camera operation and a great ear for music that amplifies the deadpan, pun-happy, tongue-in-cheek writing gushing from the page. As the mainstream moves more and more toward studio comedies disemboweled by flat visual palettes that fail to embolden jokes with any discernible directorial decisions, Wright has further articulated and championed his particular filmmaking flavour and the world of cinephiles has been the more fortunate for it. Which takes us to Baby Driver. Read More

50 Most Anticipated Films of 2017

January 12, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney Biopic, Alien: Covenant, American Made, Annihilation, Baby Driver, Battle of the Sexes, Blade Runner 2049, Brawl in Cell 99, Coco, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, Dunkirk, First Man, Free Fire, Get Out, God Particle, It Comes at Night, Kathryn Bigelow Detroit Riots Movie, Kong: Skull Island, Logan, Logan Lucky, Missouri, Molly’s Game, Mother, Mute, Okja, Paul Thomas Anderson/Daniel-Day Lewis Fashion Drama, Raw, Star Wars VIII, T2: Trainspotting, The Bad Batch, The Beguiled, The Circle, The Death of Stalin, The Discovery, The Florida Project, The Glass Castle, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Mercy, The Meyerowitz Stories, The Mummy, The Shape of Water, The Snowman, Thor: Ragnarok, Three Billboards Outside Of Ebbing, Under the Silver Lake, War for the Planet of the Apes, War Machine, Wilson, Wind River, You Were Never Really Here 1 Comment

My god does putting this thing together every year take a little bit of my soul. The product of countless hours of hunting, refining, ordering, researching, writing all so you can look at the pretty pictures as your zooming from one title to the next. A labor of love this must be. This year, more than those before, making this list was exhausting (and exhaustive) because it required so much cutting down. The initial rundown included 92 films and you better believe I wasn’t about to write up more than 50. Read More

2016 Silver Screen Riot Awards

January 4, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular 1 Comment

Now that we’ve gone ahead and declared our Top Ten Films of 2016 as well as our Ten Favorite Horror Movies of the Year, it’s time to get into the particulars and hand out some superlatives for other “Bests” of the year. Here we celebrate the best performances of the year, the finest directing, our favorite genre films, documentaries, animated features, foreign language films, even costumes… basically all the stuff we haven’t given props to yet. No lengthy discussion here, just some pictures and prizes. Read More

Silver Screen Riot’s Top Ten Films of 2016

January 3, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged 10 Cloverfield Lane, Arrival, Don’t Breathe, Green Room, La La Land, Moonlight, Sing Street, Swiss Army Man, The Lobster, The Witch, Top 10 Movies of 2016 3 Comments

2016. What a year. As rock ‘n’ roll gods and Princess Leia were smote from the surface of the earth, Trump and Suicide Squad and the Zika virus emerged. But through the muck and the mire emerged a slew of films that rocked socks and reminded us that the movie theater is more often than not a safer space than CNN. As always there were a huge number of films in contention for a limited number of spots and making room for some meant dashing the hopes of others. So before we get to the top ten, let’s run through some very laudable runner-ups. Read More

Top Ten Horror Movies of 2016

December 9, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged 10 Cloverfield Lane, Babak Anvari, Baskin, Don’t Breathe, Green Room, Hush, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ouija: Origin of Evil, The Eyes of My Mother, The Invitation, The Lure, The Neon Demon, The Shallows, The Wailing, The Witch, Under the Shadow 2 Comments

It’s that time of year. Christmas music infects our radios, capitalism runs rampant and industry insiders rush to be the first to publish their official Top Ten lists. While we at Silver Screen Riot are not racing to the finish line before we’ve seen the likes of Rogue One, Martin Scorsese’s Silence or a number of other potential contenders for the title, there is a collection of films that we do feel comfortable ranking: that of the horror persuasion. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘LA LA LAND’

December 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Benj Pasek, Best of 2016, Damien Chazelle, Emma Stone, Justin Hurwitz, Justin Paul, La La Land, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ryan Gosling 4 Comments

Infectiously affable La La Land injects new life into a tried and true Hollywood tradition: the musical. A toe-tapping throwback to the tenure of Gene Kelley and Fred Astaire, Damien Chazelle’s Dom Pérignon-bubbly follow-up to excellent Whiplash is a joyous and bittersweet ode to a time when Hollywood peddled contagious cheer and catchy carols, pretty performers and movie magic. All that and more. Complete with lively choreography and an instantly antiseptic soundtrack, La La Land is an upbeat cure-all to the depressive onslaught of 2016 . And I don’t even like musicals. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘ARRIVAL’  

November 10, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Adam, Arrival, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Heisserer, Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Out in Theaters, Reviews 3 Comments

A palindromic tour de force, Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is a real film lover’s film. A product of deep emotional and intellectual beauty, loaded with provocative philosophical treatises, smart symbolism and crafty red herrings, Arrival’s rich palette of heady questions and satisfying answers make for a movie-going experience that will surely dwell on long after the film reaches its sock-knocking, bittersweet conclusion. Cast doubt aside. Villeneuve, after four English-language films, manages to maintain his unfathomable winning streak and appears to only continue to sharpen his craft as a storyteller and visual artist. Read More

The 25 Best Films of 2016 (So Far)

June 24, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged 10 Cloverfield Lane, Anomalisa, Demolition, Don’t Breathe, Don’t Think Twice, Everybody Wants Some, Green Room, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Indignation, Krisha, Love & Friendship, Manchester by the Sea, Midnight Special, Rams, Sing Street, Swiss Army Man, The Birth of a Nation, The Nice Guys, The Witch, Transpecos 1 Comment

The year is just about half way through and with three film festivals under the belt, it seems appropriate to recount what have been the best of the year to date. We know there’s six more months of cinema coming down the drain and a lot of late arrivals usually have significant dominion over our end of year Top Ten list but we want to take the time to acknowledge what has already come and gone, to celebrate 25 marvelous films which unfortunately most people probably haven’t seen. Some of these have only played festivals and will get a wide release later in the year so keep your eyes peeled while others are already ready and waiting on Blu-Ray or DVD for your viewing enjoyment. Do yourself a favor and look into a few of them, won’t you? Read More