Out in Theaters: ‘WARCRAFT’

June 8, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Foster, Ben Schnetzer, Charles Leavitt, Chris Metzen, Daniel Wu, Dominic Cooper, Duncan Jones, Out in Theaters, Paula Patton, Ramin Djawadi, Reviews, Toby Kebbell, Travis Fimmel, Warcraft, Worst of 2016 4 Comments

Warcraft, the uber-geeky, crazy-spendy passion project/live-action shart from director Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) attempts to capitalize on a prodigious worldwide fandom by kowtowing to the nerdy needs of message board trolls and Mountain Dew guzzlers. In bending the knee, the once-great auteur has log-jammed his feature with a waterfall of meaningless (at least to non-World-of-Warcraft-gamers) exposition, allowing for a marble-mouthed plot that’s so dense, so busy and so blundering, one can only shudder at the thought of the echo chamber of dorks responsible for letting this 160-million dollar turkey come to fruition. But their foul cinematic foal has come home to roost in all its Avian-diseased glory and the symphony of ill-timed laughs and exasperated sighs shall serve as unbiased representation of what is in store for Warcraft viewers. Reckless fan servicing, harebrained plot devices and dramatically empty characterization all mash their meaty skulls to render a film that’s entirely inaccessible and subsequently snoozy as all hell for anyone without extreme existing affinity for the source material, making Warcraft, in effect, the world’s most expensive sleep aid. Read More

Talking with Greg Kwedar of ‘TRANSPECOS’

June 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Greg Kwedar, Interviews, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016, SXSW, Talking With..., Transpecos Leave a comment

First-time writer and director Greg Kwedar describes the six-year process of creating Transpecos like a proud, but deservingly exhausted, father. The Texas-set border thriller is as much character study as it is a certifiable nail-biter; a politically-minded meditation with a throbbing pace and tightrope tension. Kwedar’s preternatural ability to blend high drama with explosive pressure cooking won him and his film the Audience Award for Narrative Competition at this year’s SXSW Film Festival and, arguably more importantly, near universal praise. Read More

SIFF ’16 Capsule Review: ‘THE LURE’

June 4, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Poland, Reviews, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016, The Lure Leave a comment

As dark and psychosexual a rock opera about mermaids that could be imagined, Poland’s The Lure is a melodramatic fairytale plumped with melodic house music, chilling surrealism and dripping monster fangs. Two all-singing, all-stripping sea-born sisters populate seedy dance-halls and sudsy clubs with their the croon of their siren lullabies, flirting with the idea of first love and eating the clientele. Big, bold and weird, The Lure is a Freudian nightmare of BDSM Grimm Brother woes that engagingly pairs its wacky siren songs to the fairly basic narrative arc at play. This technically impressive 80s-Tim-Burton-creation-that-never-was is a grungy, grimy, punky protest maritime song splattered with boobs, blood and peculiarly catchy ballads. (B-)

SIFF ’16 Capsule Review: ‘CARNAGE PARK’

June 3, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Ashley Bell, Carnage Park, Horror, Mickey Keating, Pat Healy, Reviews, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016 1 Comment

Mickey Keating‘s Carnage Park starts in admirably economic fashion, rending down its slim cast to even slimmer form with a dead-eyed, high-pitched, Bible-thumping Pat Healy tagging human targets with his handy sniper rifle beset with all the rage and judgement of the Old Testament guy upstairs. Ashley Bell plays opposite as the desert-set horror’s shrieky final girl – the victim of a kidnapping who then finds herself in even more hostile territory – and while Keating’s film goes through fits and starts of amassing and losing steam, the final product feels like an over-saturated amalgam of grindhouse slasher flick tropes forked together and raked over a somewhat barren “based on a true story” conceit. Imagine Wolf Creek stripped of its anarchic edge and plunked down in an equally sun-scorched Jesus-lovin’, American nowheresville and you’ll get the picture. (C)
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Out in Theaters: ‘TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS’

June 2, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged André Nemec, Brad Garrett, Brian Tee, Dave Green, Gary Anthony Williams, Josh Appelbaum, Megan Fox, Michael Bay, Noel Fisher, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Stephen Amell, Stephen Farrelly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows., Tyler Perry 3 Comments

I’ll preface this review with an admission: I am not nor have ever been amongst the Ninja Turtles fandom. If that disqualifies me from passing judgement on this film (fact: it does not) then please, be on your way. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I have however eaten my fare share of Kraft Mac ’n’ Cheese out of a Donatello or Leonardo-fixtured bowl throughout my day – probably more recently than I would care to admit – and that ought to prove credential enough to talk about this mouthful of a dazzlingly busy kiddie sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Read More

SIFF ’16 Capsule Review: ‘ALONE’

June 2, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alone, Park Hong-min, Reviews, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016 Leave a comment

This shantytown import from South Korea sees a voyeur stalked and killed by criminals before seemingly being reincarnated and forced to live out his attack over and over again under different circumstances. Structured a bit like a choose your own adventure book when you keep running into the wrong ending and starting over, Alone covers a lot of narrative ground, forklifting dramatic and romantic plotlines into its dreamlike psycho-thriller framework to mixed effect. The result is kaleidoscopic and disorienting but the individual moments contribute dramatic heft to Park Hong-min’s altered state cinema. When all is said and done, it’s tough to parse fiction from reality and, most frustratingly, if anything ever even happened at all. (C+)

Out in Theaters: ‘POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING’

June 1, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Comedy, Jorma Taccone, Judd Apatow, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Out in Theaters, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Reviews, RZA, Simon Cowell, The Lonely Island, Tim Meadows, Usher, Will Arnett 1 Comment

It was 2003 when I first stumbled across the The Lonely Island. Their rib-tickling send-up of soapy MTV teen dramas ‘The Bu’ played top billing on Channel 101, an off-color, online shorts fest where hungry filmmakers featured their work gratis for weirdos like myself to ingest. Credit Frazzles the Squirrel (and his unfaltering demand for removing and reapplying one’s 3D glasses) for inviting those curious few to investigate these Lonely Island boys down a certifiable rabbit hole of YouTube oddities starring Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. Preeminently awkward shorts from the Lonely Island trio included such deadpan standouts as ‘Just 2 Guyz” (later adapted into ‘We Like Sports’ for their 2009 album Incredibad), ‘The Backseatsman’ and ‘Ka-Blamo!’. After a momentous run on SNL that saw the three breach viral numbers with just about every digital short they dropped, Sandberg, Taccone and Schaffer have reunited for their second feature film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and have demonstrated that though their production value may be more refined and expensive than ever and their cameo catalogue infinitely more vast, their comedic stylings have adamantly refused to mature, a tendency which proves to be both a gift and a curse for The Lonely Island and their creative offspring. Read More

SIFF ’16 Capsule Review: ‘WEINER’

May 29, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Documentaries, Festival Reviews Tagged Anthony Weiner, Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016 Leave a comment

The political arena is an ugly, soul-sucking vortex before you add a sexting scandal. Weiner, the inflammatory expose from Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, documents how fiery liberal congressman Anthony Weiner’s NYC mayoral campaign went up in flames, engulfed by public outrage following ironically weiner-centric indiscretions. The pair offer up a poignant critique of media’s misguided circus-making, all the while capturing the torturous effects on Weiner’s wife and former Hillary top dog, Huma, to craft a potent and illuminating picture of gross, cheap tv-ready gossip overshadowing political ideology and the cogs that chew up candidates and dispose of them in disheveled pieces. (B) Read More

SIFF ’16 Capsule Review: ‘TAG’

May 29, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Japan, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016, Sion Sono, Tag Leave a comment

Sion Sono’s Tag is a maelstrom of WTF; an absolutely bonkers satire of feudal sexual tensions in his home nation of Japan, characterized by an absolutely unpredictable, heady plot wormhole that snakes from killer wind to murderous schoolteachers, wedding assassins to a simple foot marathon. Accomplished with keen wit, unnerving cinematic bravado and a healthy obsession with the eccentric, Tag is Lynchian surrealism imported from Japan; ironic, macabre, risky, weird and powerful. Just when you think you know where it’s going next, it completes a pirouette to spin you entirely off base to leave your mind somersaulting. Those expecting a B-movie splatterfest will instead find their heads pried apart by Sono’s unrelenting and challenging exploration of basic human decency in a male-dominated world. (B+) Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE LOBSTER’

May 26, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Angeliki Papoulia, Ben Whishaw, Colin Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Out in Theaters, Rachel Weisz, Reviews, The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos Leave a comment

Being single is illegal. Those unfortunate enough to remain unspoken for are forced into unbecoming ponchos to hide out in perpetually drizzly U.K. forests, dodging trigger happy hunters locked, stocked and loaded with tranquiler guns, motivated to track them down and capture them. The remaining option for singletons comes in the form of a one-way ticket to a matchmaker hotel where they’ll endure 45 days of punishing “romance” seminars in hopes of finding a mate. Those who “don’t make it” are turned into an animal of their choosing. David’s (Colin Ferrell) desired animal is a lobster. And such is Yorgos Lanthimos’ demented lifecycle in his fifth feature film The Lobster. Read More