SXSW Review: BONE IN THE THROAT
Existing somewhere in the undiscovered ether between Snatch, Good Fellas and Master Chef, Henman's Bone in the Throat is a brutal crowd-pleaser that's destined to be a delicious score for…
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SXSW Review: WILD HORSES
The proof-of-concept for Wild Horses is in the pudding: Robert Duvall in front of and behind the camera, festival “it” boy James Franco and once teenage heart-throb Josh Hartnett saddled at his side. Even though Duvall hasn’t directed a film since 2003’s widely panned Assassin Tango (what. a. terrible. name.) there is promise in the idea...
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SXSW Review: MANSON FAMILY VACATION
From Lina Phillips’ ticks – his quick-burst nervous laughter after nearly everything he mutters, the awkward, uncomfortable way he holds himself, his unsettling obsession with Charles Manson – we know something’s off. The journey is uncovering what and the platform is J. Davis‘ Manson Family Vacation – a dark family drama that knots itself up...
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SXSW Review: SPY
Like Funyuns, Melissa McCarthy is an acquired taste. In her least delicate projects, she vaults around the frame, sharting and cursing to the apparent delight of squealing audiences that I just don’t relate to. Even in Paul Feig‘s Spy – a film that affords her at least an attempt at a three-dimensional character – a...
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SXSW Review: TRAINWRECK
Take it from the effervescently crass mouth of Amy Schumer, “The title was always Trainwreck. Trainwreck or Cum Dumpster.” Oh Amy, you are such just so…you. From talk radio appearances to gross-out Twitter posts, the Schum has crafted her image on being unapologetically, oh-so-adorably crude and in the context of Trainwreck, it’s miraculous to take...
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SXSW Review: FURIOUS 7
At the bedside of crisped brother Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), older, meaner Deckard (Jason Statham) vows revenge on the crew that turned his sibling into a pin cushion. The camera pulls back to reveal a high security hospital-turned-war zone and Statham slowly saunters past gunned-down guards, ravaged rooms and fizzling tech. The world pisses itself...
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SXSW Review: A WONDERFUL CLOUD
Eugene Kotlyarenko sets the cinematic stove to a low-broil in semi-autobiographical A Wonderful Cloud, a lackadaisical, off-kilter romp through a broken relationship in Los Angeles. The events – like the comedy – are low-key and faintly directional, though are predominantly characterized by an overwhelming essence of a half-committed shrug. The fact that Kotlyarenko and co-star...
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SXSW Review: LAMB
Director, screenwriter and star Ross Partridge unearths a ripe splintering of soul in the fragile, complex love story that is Lamb. Adapted from Bonnie Nadzam‘s sage but harrowing novel of redemption and temptation, Patridge repurposes the byzantine dynamic of Nadzam’s words to co-exist in the cinematic crossroads of nail-ruining suspense and earnest, didactic sentiments of humanity,...
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SXSW Review: EXCESS FLESH
Remember those fetid middle school health videos about eating disorders? The concerned best friend, the bespectacled guidance counselor, the implied offscreen self-abuse. The gorging. The vomiting. The inevitable dramatic hospital visit. Excess Flesh isn’t quite that but Patrick Kennelly‘s wannabe horror feature is still very much the cinematic version of binging and purging. It crams...
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SXSW Review: AVA’S POSSESSIONS
Traditionally, the horror movies begins with the tabula rasa and from there builds upwards with little narrative Lincoln Logs stacked on shower scares and mirror pop-ins. Ava’s Possessions shrewdly flips the formula on its head, poising an intriguing conceit in the exploration of what transpires after a ghastly, cathartic event. Where is the werewolf at...