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Blu-Ray Review: ‘THE HATEFUL EIGHT’

Synopsis:  “While racing toward the town of Red Rock in post-Civil War Wyoming, bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh) encounter another bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson) and a man who claims to be a sheriff. Hoping to find shelter from a blizzard, the group travels to a stagecoach stopover located on a mountain pass. Greeted there by four strangers, the eight travelers soon learn that they may not make it to their destination after all.” Read More

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Out In Theaters: ‘KRISHA’

Every family has its black sheep, a fact made immeasurably more palpable during each and every holiday celebration or dreaded family reunion. Every hug (or handshake), every warm look (or lack thereof), each and every laugh (or sinister snicker) comes loaded with accidental intent, long-lingering feelings that peel back the jaded historicity of who we are: the stories that define us and the rumors that plague us. In the immobile stasis of familial arbitrations, lines are always drawn in the sand, alliances cropping up and breaking down like an especially dramatic episode of Survivor. In Krisha, we find a hunched carpetbagger of a woman reentering the wary arms of the same family that turned its back on her years ago, unable to put up with one more manic fit brought on by her unwavering addiction. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE’

Overlong and under-focused, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a deceptively dark furlough into the blackest corner of DC’s batcave where men battle gods, Wonder Woman finally gets the spotlight (guitar solo and all), Jesse Eisenberg puts on an entertainingly manic Lex Luthor face, and none of it feels like much fun. As expected, the heavy-handed fog that is 155 minutes of super-porn allows itself splashes of clear-eyed splendor, most notably those that center around Ben Affleck’s positively boiling Batman, but Batman v Superman hardly has the desired ratio of grandeur to gratuity to do the battle of the century it’s pitched as justice. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘TRANSPECOS’

Like a lens flare cast from No Country For Old Men or an arresting never-before-seen side plot from Breaking Bad, Transpecos sets us on the belt buckle region of the Mexican-American border. In a diminutive shanty of a migra outpost – in essence, a tollbooth and boom barrier – three glorified crossing guards witness hell break loose when a cartel scheme goes belly up. Greg Kwedar’s daring debut is part sun-scotched moral meditation, part adrenaline-fueled character thriller, handsomely brought to life with crisp, concise storytelling and effective, affecting performances that casts a meaningful glance at border politics and the wolves that lie in wait. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE’

If you had told me that John Travolta would comeback from his recent Academy Award persona butchery (2014’s “Adele Dazeem”, 2015’s repulsively awkward Scar-Jo sneak-a-kiss) by playing a sand-blasted moral compass in a Ti West Western (a Western, it must be noted, that is of the genre through and through, absent of the horror flair that has, up to this point, characterized the filmmaker’s oeuvre), I woulda spit my cud. But Travolta is as present for In a Valley of Violence as it is a corn-fed, all-American, organically certified Western. Consider my head scratched. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘MY BLIND BROTHER’

In Sophie Goodhart‘s intentionally lackadaisical comedy My Blind Brother, Nick Kroll sharpens his post-television presence as unambitious deadbeat Bill whose doomed purpose in life is to be a seeing-eye underdog for his egotistical handicapable brother Robbie (Adam Scott). Complications arise when Bill and Robbie have eyes, er feelings, for the same girl, the spirited, wanna-be-do-gooder Rose (Jenny Slate). The result is a well-meaning, socially awkward meditation on the comedy of disability. Following the sacred rule book of Matt and Trey, either everything is fair game or nothing is and this mentality leads My Blind Brothers down some delightfully uncouth corridors. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘HUSH’

To start with a bit of housekeeping, Hush joined the critically acclaimed Iranian Sundance debut Under the Shadow when it was swept up by preeminent streaming service Netflix before it was ever screened in front of an audience. Adding  to their growing stockade of boutique horror films, Netflix has queued up the Mike Flanagan-directed thriller starring John Gallagher Jr. and Kate Siegel for fast turnaround release on April 8th. Meaning that those who want to get pupils on this high intensity home invasion thriller as soon as possible won’t be forced to wait long, however Hush, a film that lives and dies by its supreme sound design, should be experienced in the filmic church that is the theater. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘WAR ON EVERYONE’

John Michael McDonagh stepped out from the shadows of filmmaker young brother Martin McDonagh, who’s crafted such cult modern classics as In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, in 2011 when he debuted The Guard. That film went on to mild box office success (overseas) and general critical adoration, though I’ll admit the deadpan acidic humor never quite reached me the way that it had so many others. McDonagh’s latest, and his first film set on American soil, is War On Everyone and represents a clear, though offbeat, progression of the director’s interests. Within, he declares war on traditional narrative constructs of law and lawless, cops and robbers, good and evil, giving a grand total of zero fucks along the way. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘CLAIRE IN MOTION’

To look is not to see. And so goes Claire in Motion, a missing persons dramatic procedural that struggles to be more than meets the eye. College math professor and wife to a known hobby survivalist, Claire (Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt) is forced into a waking nightmare when her husband Paul (Chris Beetem) fails to return home after a projected five-day stretch in the wilderness. As the days crawl on with few clues and diminishing search party efforts, the only thing that’s becomes certain is the all-consuming specter of uncertainty itself. Read More

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SXSW ’16 Review: ‘A STRAY’

An introspective sociopolitical drama about a discarded Somalian, A Stray stars Captain Phillip’s Barkhard Abdirahman as Adan, a refugee living on the streets of Minneapolis who happens upon a lost dog. Without a home or hearth of his own, Adan is unable to provide for himself much less another helpless lot of God’s creations. Complicating the issue is the fact that Adan is a semi-devout Muslim, a religion that sees dogs – stray or not – as impure beasts, not meant for handling, much less ownership. What plays out is a somber reflection on religion and personal values, experienced through an eye-opening Third World lens. Read More