Out in Theaters: MEMORIES OF THE SWORD

August 29, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Heung-Sik Park, Memories of the Sword, Out in Theaters, Reviews, South Korea Leave a comment

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

Out in Theaters: 7 CHINESE BROTHERS

August 28, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged 7 Chinese Brothers, Bob Byington, Jason Schwartzman, Olympia Dukakis, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Tunde Adebimpe Leave a comment

The old “I could watch so-and-so read a phone book” adage speaks to an ability to turn the banal into something unexpected and has been liberally applied to the works of anyone from Bill Murray to Daniel Day Lewis. In a similar but distinctly different vein, there’s something mundanely alluring about planting Jason Schwartzman in a room and allowing him to made snide riffs on each and every thing. The Rushmore-starrer possesses uncommon command over his ability to make you feel lesser, even if he’s day drunk, mostly unemployed and in the middle of getting punched in the face and Bob Byington capitalizes insanely on his ability to do such. Read More

Out in Theaters: WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS

August 28, 2015 by Chris Bunker Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Emily Ratajkowski, Max Joseph, Out in Theaters, Reviews, We Are Your Friends, Wes Bentley, Zac Efron Leave a comment

I could rant and rave about EDM culture till the MDMAddicts foam at the mouth. What’s supposed to be about music really only appears to focus on grabbing the nearest thing and doing it — be it man, woman or drug. Famous DJs make trash music that sells because it’s what we all want to hear. A new-age art form that’s endemic in my generation, EDM shows more about how we’ve raged than how we’ve changed. I hoped We Are Your Friends might delve into the DJ lifestyle that’s evolved into an addiction. At some points, it blurs the lines and senses and manages to say something poignant. Then it OD’s and it’s a bad trip from there. Read More

Out in Theaters: Z FOR ZACHARIAH

August 27, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chris Pine, Craig Zobel, Margo Robbie, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Robert C. O'Brien, Z for Zachariah 1 Comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review

There are so many pivot points in Z for Zachariah that it becomes hard to nail down exactly what director Craig Zobel intended for it. At one point, it seems decidedly about gender politics, at another about race relations, and eventually it boiled down to themes of suspicion, greed and jealousy. Spliced with a domineering amount of ambiguity. All this from a cast of three. To call it thematically rich may be overly generous – maybe thematically crowded would hit the nail on the head more – but nonetheless, it strives for something thoughtful and great, even when it comes up just short. Read More

Out in Theaters: DIGGING FOR FIRE

August 27, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson, Chris Messina, Digging For Fire, Jake Johnson, Joe Swanberg, Orlando Bloom, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Rosemarie DeWitt Leave a comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review.

Displaying the kind of laid back candor that sums up the mumblecore founding member, Joe Swanberg revealed that once you have kids, “life is a clusterfuck.” And so is Digging For Fire. Kinda. A lesser effort in the aftermath of two eruptively sweet victories (Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas), Digging for Fire takes on the humps and bumps of marriage and the battle of young parenthood with an enviable cast for any director. Read More

Out in Theaters: TURBO KID

August 26, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged ABCs of Death, Anouk Whissell, François Simard, Horror, Laurence Laboeuf, Michael Ironside), Munro Chambers, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The RKSS Collective, Turbo Kid, Yoann-Karl Whissell Leave a comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 SXSW review.

This is the future. Bicycles remain the only mode of transport and they scream down rubble road decorated with human skulls, past junk yards littered with bits and bobs of discarded robots and towards the odd outskirts ripe for plundering. The land is overrun with masked miscreants of a steam-punk Road Warrior meets Jason Voorhees variety picking through the remains of a scrapyard Earth. The leader of the bicycled clan, a nefarious crime boss known as Zeus (Michael Ironside), has concocted a way to transform humans into water – now the world’s most precious resource. This is 1997. Read More

Out in Theaters: THE SUMMER HOUSE

August 26, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Out in Theaters, Uncategorized Tagged Curtis Burz, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Summer House 1 Comment

The Summer House is one of those “look how f*cked up the rich are so that the rest of us can feel better about not having any money because at least we’re good people” bones we get thrown so often at the cinema these days. This time around, behind the curtain of the “seemingly put-together” family of three stands a father who, while extraordinarily resourceful in business and prudent in financial planning, conceals a nasty predilection for young boys. Oh yeah, it’s a pedophile movie as well. Read More

Out in Theaters: NO ESCAPE

August 25, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged John Erick Dowdle, Lake Bell, No Escape, Out in Theaters, Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan, Reviews 1 Comment

Originally packaged with a much more apt title (The Coup), the ambiguously-named No Escape is still the second surprise thriller of the summer (the first being the shockingly excellent The Gift). John Erick Dowdle, who delivered the monstrously underrated As Above/So Below last year, again proves his knack for preeminently nail-biting sequences with a 103-minute zombie feature that replaces said zombies with radicalized “Asians”. Whereas zombies lack motive, the bloodthirsty nature of the enemy in No Escape is their defining feature and makes for antagonists who are thinly drawn but hugely imposing. Moments of cliche are all but drown out by the overwhelming panic at the heart of the film, a film that manages to tap into the epicenter of terror – having your family hacked to pieces in front of your eyes. It is, in three words: intense as f*ck. Read More

Documentary Dossier: LISTEN TO ME MARLON

August 23, 2015 by Eric Brown Posted in Documentaries, Out in Theaters Tagged A Streetcar Named Desire, Documentaries, Last Tango in Paris, Listen to Me Marlon, Marlon Brando, Mutiny on the Bounty, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Listen to Me Marlon opens to an analog recording of Marlon Brando contemplating the future of movies with a crude CG rendering of his face, now aged, as his mouth moves to the words spoken: words that express his synthetic representation in a place where he feels nothing is real. The tape is titled “Self-hypnosis.” One, among bags filled with hundreds of others, is Brando’s self-diagnostic foray into inner solitude, an intimate voice with rich precedence naked for the first time. The audio recordings contain his ruminations, self-reflections, observations, and personal confessions, which are spread out over a multi-textured pastiche culled together with the cooperation of the Brando estate. Read More

Out in Theaters: AMERICAN ULTRA

August 20, 2015 by J Simpson Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged American Ultra, Connie Britton, Jesse Eisenberg, John Leguizamo, Kristen Stewart, Max Landis, Nima Nourizadeh, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Topher Grace Leave a comment

Everybody knows that smoking weed can make you paranoid. And anybody who’s spent much time in Cannabis Culture probably knows that guy, who spends too much time getting high, drawing weird comics and spouting weird theories. But what if those weird, paranoid theories turned out to be true? This is the premise around which Nima Nourizadeh‘s unlikely new stoner/action/comedy/romance American Ultra is built, and ultimately succeeds. Read More