Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
Assassination came in with Korea’s second-highest box office in 2015 for a locally-produced film, preceded only by the worldwide smash, Avengers: Age of Ultron. They’re both action films featuring a large cast of talented fighters/killers, but beyond these very general similarities and their overwhelmingly positive reception in Korea, the films couldn’t be more different – especially in that you really need to see Assassination.
Read More
Sneakerheadz documents the intricate cultural and economic customs of Sneakerdom: an ever-expanding realm where a pair of second hand shoes (namely those of the Air Jordan variety) can fetch resellers up to $100,000. Mick Partridge and Little Miss Sunshine’s David T. Friendly trace the sneaker’s step from the retro-Converse soles of basketball legends competing at Rucker Park, to feet featuring on the runways of Paris Fashion Week. Read More
The name “Barry Crimmins” may sound vaguely familiar, but there aren’t many non-comedians who know Crimmins’ story – at least not the whole story. It’s arguable that this is reason enough for the film to have been made and for as many people as possible to watch it. His is a unique story of personal discovery and public achievement that rewards as it educates, and director Bobcat Goldthwait’s love and admiration for his subject pervades the film. Read More
Joel Edgerton‘s edgy horror/psychological thriller unravels the commitment-phobic fears of modern living, turning the clear divisions between protagonist/antagonist on its head in the process.
Have you ever run into an old school chum, perhaps while visiting your hometown? This old friend seems way more invested, eager to “catch up” and pick up where you left off, oblivious of the fact that you may have a wife, kids, a job, commitments a-plenty, and just don’t have time to kick back and spark one up on the couch, reflecting on old times? But what if your old friend is going through a rough patch and just needs a friendly face and a sympathetic ear? Here’s your chance to do the right thing and be a true friend, but too often, we falter, succumbing to the fear of wasting our precious, precious time. Read More
My feelings for Fox’s rebooted Fantastic Four property, much like the film itself, are all over the place. With director Josh Trank squaring the focus on the men and women (or, in this case, boys and girls) behind the powers, Fantastic Four had the opportunity to be, at the very least, something different from the crop of annual superhero movies, those with their quick quips and even quicker action beats hogging the entirety of the run time. If they got it right, you leave the theater wide-eyed and sugar rushing, “When’s the next one?” Fantastic Four is not that movie…until it is. And then it tries so hard to be just that that it ends up cutting its nose to spite its face. Read More
The charge for any movie based upon a popular novel is two-fold. First, they must remain faithful to the source material. You can’t have a writer bandying critical alterations in plot or character, lest they invite the chagrin of a million swarming fanboys, ready with pitchforks and sub-reddit comments. Secondly, they must inject some modicum of vision into the material. To transform a novel into a film without tact or some place of purpose is to present an audience with a run-down of in-book events without much-needed personality or intent. Think James Franco adapting Faulkner or Angelina Jolie taking on “Unbroken”. They failed because they were “adaptations” and nothing more; they changed the medium, but lost the soul. Read More
*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review*
To put a pin in the beauty of The End of the Tour is a philosophical venture potentially as challenging as James Ponsoldt‘s latest accomplishment. Detailing a three-day exchange between Rolling Stones journalist David Lipsky and rock star author David Foster Wallace, Ponsoldt’s film is talky and emotionally whirling, thick with dry-mouthed moments and cemented with a kind of human earnestness that cannot be bought or bartered for. Read More
To be honest, Jonathan Demme’s Ricki and The Flash sounds supremely bland on paper and it looked even worse in the trailers. Meryl Streep plays Linda Brummel aka Ricki, who years ago abandoned her family to pursue being a rock musician in L.A. Now she’s a Total Foods cashier by day and lead singer of amateur rock band The Flash by night. When ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline) tells her that their daughter Julie (a feisty Mamie Gummer) has been left by her husband, Ricki hops a plane to Indiana to reconnect with her estranged family. It all sounds cliché (and it is) but the movie excels in its execution— primarily through its tonal execution as well as a solid script and top-notch acting. Read More
To “get into character,” many actors have taken it upon themselves to devastate their money-making temples. History credits Robert De Niro with starting the trend; his packing on pounds for Raging Bull set a record, as well as the stage for silver screen physical transformations. Today, Christian Bale is a particularly looney example of someone willing to batter himself with physically implausible weight-gain and loss but, to his credit, it informs his performance in oft tremendous ways. Read More
For the sake of honesty, I’ll report this: I loved 2011’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol too much. So much so that it earned a slot in my top ten that year. To this day, it’s my favorite of the series and an improbably rewatchable event film. Even with a somewhat spotted past (Mission Impossible 2 is fun though objectively not the greatest film accomplishment), the Mission Impossible franchise is one of my sleeper hit favorites, with the last two entries – the aforementioned addition from Brad Bird and J.J. Abrams‘ Phillip Seymour Hoffman-starring threequel – delivering some of the series’ absolute best material. When it was announced that Christopher McQuarrie (director of Jack Reacher, screenwriter of Batman & Robin) had mounted the directorial stool for the fifth iteration of Ethan Hunt’s impossible missions, my anticipation shuttered and cautiously withdrew. Read More