Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
Chess players be mad crazy. This is the conceit of Edward Zwick’s latest film, Pawn Sacrifice. Telling the tale of Bobby Fischer‘s rise to the title of Chess World Champion, Zwick washes away the taste of Bobby Fischer the puny, prodigal chessmaster like with a mind-erasing swill of Everclear, replacing it with Bobby Fischer, megalomaniac, paranoid, delusional, dedicated anti-Semite. His competition, Boris Spassky, does not fare much better. These dudes ‘r’ nuts. Read More
Black Mass is a stage upon which Johnny Depp has revived his career, and little more. As the film’s malevolent heavy and famed criminal overlord “Whitey” Bulger, Deep is borderline excellent, brooding and prowling around the screen like a silverback gorilla. On the streets, he’s equally guerrilla, taking down his enemies as well as former-confidantes-turned-rat in maelstroms of cold-shelled slugs. And though Deeps is admirable as the callous and cold Jimmy Bulger, the film itself overwhelmingly replicates its star’s unenviable personality traits in its cinematic aura, resulting in a film that’s even more callous and cold than the iconic gangster at its center. Read More
Human beings simply aren’t built to function at the cruising altitude of a 747. At 29,000 feet, you body is literally dying. Lack of oxygen becomes a toxic, poisoning the brain and forcing your body to shut down non-vital organs. At such heights, it’s near impossible to breathe without a tank of O. Beholding Everest on a proper IMAX screen, I too found myself gasping for air. It’s literally breathtaking. Read More
*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review
Leslye Headland arrived on the cinematic scene in a roundabout kind of way. Her debut film Bachelorette divided audiences – Reelview’s James Berardinelli gave it zero stars and labeled it “the worst movie of 2012” (we gave it a soaring review) – though it’s gone on to achieve a quiet cult status. Originally written as a screenplay then adapted for the stage, her raunchy theatrical production was discovered, altered back into movie form and green lit with an inspired cast (Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson.) The outcome was a lewd female Hangover bursting with genuine laughs. In 2013, Headland got back on the horse for a new project, one that she just described as “When Harry Met Sally with assholes.” And so came Sleeping With Other People, a satirically formulaic though gravely side-splitting whooper. Read More
Categories are powerful. If I were to classify this film as a “romantic comedy” at this point in the review, a substantial portion of potential viewers will have dismissed the idea of going to see it by the end of this sentence. Our hard-wired categorization processes simultaneously serve as the lighthouse and blind spot of all facets of decision-making. The Beauty Inside half-heartedly sets out to explore this complex aspect of cognitive function in the context of romantic relationships. It tracks the life and love of protagonist Woo-Jin, a 29 year-old man with a highly unorthodox affliction: He is devoid of all social categories because his race, age, and gender changes every time he falls asleep. Read More
I could spend the bulk of this review talking about the precipitous rise and fall of M. Night Shyamalan. I could praise The Sixth Sense and Unbroken, give small credit to Signs and even portions of The Village and bury later “horror” duds like Lady in the Water and The Happening. I could extend a wilted rose towards the cinematic sharts that were The Last Airbender and After Earth but what’s the fun in that? After all, we’re no longer celebrating a funeral so much as a man’s comeback, because make no mistake The Visit is a comeback and a pretty damn entertaining one at that. Read More
With this year’s very successful science fiction hits Mad Max: Fury Road and Turbo Kid already being referred to as “cult classics” in the making, the definition of the B-movie in the digital era must fit a different rubric beyond, for example, the use of practical effects or references to earlier films and aesthetics. The horror comedy has always been a genre prone to B-status – but can they all achieve the love that the ironically-adored low-budget classics of the past have? That’s the question facing a film like this week’s new release, Bloodsucking Bastards. Read More
To say that no one asked for a Transporter reboot is putting things lightly. The franchise in which Jason Statham rose to fame hardly lit up the box office when it set off in 2002, barely crossing the 25 million dollar marker on a 21 million dollar budget. The second installment hardly fared better, scraping up 43 on 32 and by movie numero three, the second-rate action/car staple was hardly scraping by. 7 years later, we have the latest addition to the “Why In Hell Was This Rebooted?” pool in The Transporter Refueled, a near abomination of filmmaking, barely held together by flashy Audi commercial tie-ins, gratuitous sexual violence and Ray Stevenson’s equally flashy grin. At least Ray’s having some fun. We in the audience though are not privy to such leisure. Read More
*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review.
Robert Redford‘s adaptation of Bill Bryson‘s popular 1998 memoir A Walk In the Woods is an unremarkable journey with a short sprinkling of low-key chuckles and a heaving dose of schmaltzy sentiment. As Redford’s travel companion, co-star Nick Nolte manages to give this low-percolating buddy comedy/road-movie-on-foot at least some minor footing, but its not enough to balance the overwrought equilibrium. Mining the material for all its geriatric sitcom worth, director Ken Kwapis‘ internal clock ticks with the fervor of a retiree, as he fails to charge the material with any sense of driving momentum. As much as Nolte’s character drags his feet, it’s Kwapis who lags most. For a film all about the journey forward, that presents a major problem. Read More
From the very first shot of Memories of the Sword, the taste of Asian martial arts cinema at its most gravity-defying floods your palette. Much of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s DNA has been spliced into Heung-Sik Park‘s South Korean swashbuckler what with all the running up bamboo, nonchalant wind-walking and artful swordsmanship. Its similarities to that cornerstone of modern Asian cinema do not however prove to be its undoing as Memories of the Sword is an often beautifully realized, artfully photographed cinematic experience filled with rich characters and even richer histories. Read More