SXSW ’17 Review: ‘WIN IT ALL’

March 16, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Aisling Derbez, Jake Johnson, Joe Lo Truglio, Joe Swanberg, Keegan-Michael Key, Pixar, Reviews, SXSW '17, Win It All 2 Comments

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 director-actor capacity on festival favorite Drinking Buddies. Swanberg’s brand of low-key, grounded comedy-drama has rarely been better than in Win It All as he and Johnson create an emotionally involving character study of a man whose addiction to gambling (and losing) has come back to bite him, just when life has started looking up. Read More

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: ‘THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA’

March 14, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Adam Scott, Irene Turner, Josh Lucas, Juno Temple, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Melissa Leo, Michael Chernus, Netflix, The Most Hated Woman in America, Tommy O'Haver Leave a comment

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 may not remember this striking true story that will benefit most from its true-to-life gnarls. Activist turned founder of the American Atheists organization, O’Hair drew criticism far and wide. When she, her son Jon and granddaughter Robin are kidnapped, her notoriety is so severe, her bonds to even those who share the same blood so crimped and discarded, that no one even bothered looking for her. She remained a hostage for going on two weeks before…well I’ll let the uninitiated discover that for themselves.

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘GAME OF DEATH’

March 13, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Catherine Saindon, Emelia Hellman, Erniel Baez Duenas, Game of Death, Horror, Laurence “Baz” Morais, Nick Serino, Reviews, Sam Earle, Sebastien Landry, SXSW '17, Thomas Vallieres, Victoria Diamond 1 Comment

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 the traditional three act structure and trying to cram the one into the other is risky business. Though there’s some glaringly funky transfer hiccups reformatting the series as a feature film – most notably aspect ratios that shift scene to scene – the product overcomes what should be insurmountable odds at every turn through pure force of blood-stained will. 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

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘THE LIGHT OF THE MOON’

March 12, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Jessica M. Thompson, Michael Stahl-David, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Stephanie Beatriz, The Light of the Moon 2 Comments

The Light of the Moon is an ambiguous enough film title. Jessica M. Thompson’s movie ostensibly could be a werewolf coming-of-age independent film. A non-canonical sequel to Moonlight. Even a bone-headed YouTube short about community college bros flashing their buns to one another. It’s none of those things, thankfully. Instead, The Light of the Moon, while a whole lot better than any of the above pitches, will catch you equally off guard. Read More

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘THE ARCHER ’

March 11, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Ana Markova, Bailey Noble, Bill Sage, Casey Schroen, Jeanine Mason, Michael Grant Terry, Reviews, SXSW '17, The Archer, Valerie Weiss Leave a comment

Robin Hood. Legolas. Katniss Everdeen. That dead-eyed kid from We Need to Talk About Kevin. Archers all. The Archer’s Lauren Pierce is not a name you’ll need add to that list. Bailey Noble does a fine job as the cocksure protagonist, a going-places high school competitor with a sharp eye and a short fuse who winds up in a correctional facility for minors, but Casey Schroen’s undeveloped script and an entirely underwhelming edit doesn’t allow Lauren to flourish into anything beyond a hodgepodge of kick-ass chick cliches trapped in a humdrum teen thriller. Read More

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘COLOSSAL’

March 11, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Uncategorized Tagged Anne Hathaway, Austin Stowell, Dan Stevens, Jason Sudeikis, Nacho Vigalondo, Out in Theaters, Reviews, SXSW '17, Tim Blake Nelson Leave a comment

Colossal, about a drunken dead-ender who discovers she has become an unwitting remote control for a massive horned monstrosity, is a film at war with itself. On the one hand, the spectacularly strange conceit prompts a delicious revision of the monster movie genre. Still, the potential novelty fails to take flight, making Colossal both too strange for mainstream audiences who typically buy tickets for monsters bashing each other movies and not really strange enough to satisfy audiences hoping for something truly nutty. Read More

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘PREVENGE’

March 10, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alice Lowe, Horror, Kate Dickie, Prevenge, Reviews, SXSW '17, Tom Davis Leave a comment

A case of in utero homicide, Prevenge comes born of triple-threat Alice Lowe’s fertile but twisted mind. Taking duties as writer, director and star in this slop-rock ballad of killer prepartum impulses, Lowe weaves her story of a knocked up avenging angel in the strangest of circumstances. Pregnant at 37, art found itself mimicking reality (to a degree) as Lowe put pen to paper to stitch together a one-page pitch early in her first trimester. Read More