Muddled Mythology and Tepid Romance Combine to Make ‘UNDINE’ Low-Wattage Erotica

June 2, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Christian Petzold, Franz Rogowski, Jacob Matschenz, Out in Theaters, Paula Beer, Reviews, Undine Leave a comment

Legend goes that the undine, an elemental race of water nymphs described in ancient European myths, are doomed to the fidelity of their beloved. Emerging from the water to love a man of their choosing and thereby become human, undine are beautiful but fragile creatures, cursed to die if their man isn’t faithful to them. The price of that infidelity? Death. Whereas many relationships end in taters when a beau is unfaithful, it’s literally kill or be killed for the undine and that goes doubly so in acclaimed German director Christian Petzold’s mythologically-rooted romantic drama Undine. Read More

Franchise Fatigue Possesses ‘THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT’

June 1, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Horror, Julian Hilliard, Michael Chaves, Out in Theaters, Patrick Wilson, Reviews, Ruairi O’Connor, The Conjuring, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Vera Farmiga 1 Comment

The Conjuring extended universe is one of the – if not the most – preeminent examples of a modern horror franchise done correctly. Expansive, with spin-offs shooting off into this direction or that, and an absolute box office powerhouse (with almost two billion dollars in worldwide gross), The Conjuring’s terrifying rein is vast. And yet with three separate offshoots, including a full-fledged Annabelle trilogy, and more on the way, the haunting force of the series that began in 2013 comes sputtering to a decidedly indifferent halt with The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Read More

Devilishly Fashionable ‘CRUELLA’ Sees Emma Stone Break Bad On the Catwalk

May 26, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Craig Gillespie, Cruella, Disney, Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Jenny Beavan, Jeremy Strong, Joel Fry, Nicolas Karakatsanis, Paul Walter Hauser, Reviews 1 Comment

Turning any iconic Disney villain into a sympathetic (but still devious) protagonist is no easy feat, particularly when that task involves ‘both sides’ of turning 101 Dalmatian puppies into haute couture. Disney’s atrocious Maleficent origin story wholly bungled the task, dropping the bag on transforming that striking villain into a whole-cloth anti-hero, instead defanging and deflating the malevolent fairy, leaving her all but unrecognizable, costume aside. With Cruella, Disney course-corrects on that previous failing, striking the right balance between exploring the roots of its devilish protagonist while still remaining true to her animated rancorous counterpart. Read More

Australian Whodunit ‘THE DRY’ Will Quench Thirst for Straight-Forward Mystery

May 21, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly, John Polson, Keir O’Donnell, Matt Nable, Robert Connolly, The Dry 1 Comment

Before a global pandemic wrought devastation across the whole of the world, international attention was all on Australia, which went up like a tinderbox in their unusually hot 2019-2020 bushfire season. In a period known as the Black Summer, 18.6 million hectares went up in flame, killing dozens of people, destroying thousands of homes and businesses, and burning nearly three billion animals alive. It was an apocalyptic level of devastation that called to mind imagery of hellfire and damnation. Robert Connolly’s The Dry, a small town Australian murder mystery set in this period of immense drought, is about the devastation wrought by dried up land and dried up people. Read More

Formulaic Feel-Good Movie ‘DREAM HORSE’ Expertly Designed for Your Mom

May 19, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Damian Lewis, Dream Horse, Euros Lyn, Neil McKay, Out in Theaters, Owen Teale, Reviews, Toni Collette 1 Comment

Decidedly light matinee fare that has no qualms sticking to a well-trot winsome formula, Euros Lyn’s Dream Horse nonetheless breeds charm rather than contempt for its stick-to-the-formula approach. Based on the true story of a ragtag group of aspiring racehorse-owners from a Southern Welsh community who come together to breed and train a proper thoroughfare, Lyn’s film is designed for moms that like their movies “nice”. Read More

Even Quieter Sequel ‘A QUIET PLACE PART II’ Goes Places

May 18, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged A Quiet Place Part II, Cillian Murphy, Horror, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

John Krasinski’s Lee Abbott may have bit the dust in the actor-turned-filmmaker’s directorial debut but that doesn’t stop him from returning in the opening moments of A Quiet Place Part II. The scene is set as Marco Beltrami’s foreboding soundtrack creeps into our senses as a ‘Day 1’ title card slips into frame. The end is nigh but no one knows anything about the devastation barreling their way. In fact, it’s just another beautiful summer day in Small Town America. The Abbot family and their tight-knit community gather in blissful ignorance at a little league game. Marcus (Noah Jupe) is up to bat when the sky erupts in flaming streaks. Something is coming. Families break off into nuclear clusters, rushing to their vehicles, heading home to regroup. Before anyone has any sense of what’s happening, monsters reign down, killing anything that makes a sound. A quiet place is born, in flame and in blood. Read More

Laughable ‘SPIRAL’ a Chris Rock-Hosted SNL-Style Sendup of an Outmoded Version of Horror

May 13, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Charlie Clouser, Chris Rock, Darren Lynn Bousman, Max Minghella, Samuel L. Jackson, Saw, Spiral 2 Comments

Jigsaw is dead but the Saw franchise continues to spiral, now with Chris Rock! The aptly-named Spiral is a bizarro world creation. One that feels like a Chris Rock-hosted Saturday Night Live Saw satire short that forgot it was a bit and took on life of its own. Frankensteining Chris Rock’s signature observational comedy stylings, the Saw series’ trademark torture gore, frenetic editing, and grizzled low-budg aesthetics, and a lazy attempt to modernize the formula by putting police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement front and center, Spiral is a crazed textual and tonal mishmash. One that thinks it has a lot on its mind but nothing of actual value to say, it’s the weird clunker of a horror reboot that can’t even prove how it ever thought the disparate elements would align to begin with. Instead, we’re left with whatever the hell Spiral: From the Book of Saw is and the layup imagery of a shit of a movie circling the proverbial drain.

‘PROFILE’ or: How Not to Be a Journalist

May 13, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Christine Adams, Emma Cater, Morgan Watkins, Out in Theaters, Profile, Reviews, Shazad Latif, Timur Bekmambetov, Valene Kane 1 Comment

It’s a natural reaction to wonder how anyone could possibly be so stupid whenever you read a headline about young Western women seduced by ISIS recruiters. To throw everything away to, quite literally, get in bed with known terrorists is a path so head-scratching – an idea so objectively poor – that it literally escapes the realm of comprehension. And yet, countless such stories exist. Women who knowingly smuggled themselves into Syria and the not-so-warm embrace of the Islamic State, where a murderous patriarchal theocracy awaits their sacrifice, exist in the thousands. Their stories, sadly, usually end the same: attempts to escape, sexual enslavement, or being stoned to death. And though journalistic queries about the 5 W’s loom large, the who, where, what, and how of their recruitment fade beneath the pressing issue of why. Why would any woman choose this? Why would any woman subject themselves to the will of patriarchal terrorists? Read More

Deadly Jealousy Brews In ‘THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS’

May 12, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Avery Pizzuto, Clayne Crawford, Oscar Ignacio Jiménez, Out in Theaters, Peter Albrechtsen, Reviews, Robert Machoian, Sepideh Moafi, The Killing of Two Lovers 1 Comment

Sometimes the relationships we forge end up creating a box around us. As we get older, inflexibility sets in, constrictions grow like wild roots; weeds overtaking the garden, bad habits poisoning the well of familial trust and security. Psychological shorthand forces us to categorize and cement versions of ourselves and others: he is always this way, this is just what she does. The boxes can be tiring, maddening even, and at times impossible to break out of, no matter the sincerity of effort or number of attempts. The Killing of Two Lovers starts in a literal box. Framed at the square 4:3 aspect ratio of the silent-era and shot under the cautious eye of cinematographer Oscar Ignacio Jiménez, our characters are immediately imprisoned, stuck in a box of their own making; their own metaphorical jailers. Read More

‘THE DJINN’ a Threadbare Supernatural Home Invasion Snooze

May 11, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged David Charbonier, Ezra Dewey, Horror, Julián Estrada, Justin Powell, Matthew James, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Rob Brownstein, The Djinn 2 Comments

Little more than a collection of audio-visual horror movie clichès stitched atop a daddy’s-gone-for-the-night campfire tale, David Charbonier and Justin Powell’s The Djinn feels like a short film puffed out to feature length without the content sufficient to support said feature status. The film follows Dylan (Ezra Dewey), mute son to a late-night DJ and single father (Rob Brownstein) who decides to mess around with a haunted book and ends up summoning a djinn, which for the purposes of this film is basically an evil genie. Read More