Summer 2016 Preview – 28 Movies Better than Half-Hearted Suntanning

April 4, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists Tagged Captain America: Civil War, Demolition, Don’t Breathe, Finding Dory, Free State of Jones, Ghostbusters, Green Room, Hologram for a King, Independence Day: Resurgence, Keanu, Kubo And the Two Strings, Lights Out, Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping, Sausage Party, Star Trek Beyond, Suicide Squad, The BFG, The Founder, The Infiltrator, The Jungle Book, The Legend of Tarzan, The Nice Guys, War Dogs, Warcraft, X-Men: Apocalypse 2 Comments

Sure it’s not quite summer yet but a few 70 degree days have gone to our heads and we’ve decided to do some spring cleaning. Thus the Summer 2016 Movie Preview! The aim of this comprehensive guide is to get you geared up for the coming sunny months, where you fair reader will holed up inside to watch moving pictures on monumentally-sized screens. As can be expected, there is no shortage of spectacle this summer. You can almost rear the bleating of dump trucks reversing bloated piles of studio tentpoles to dump at our feet as we speak. Will there be a diamond in the rough this summer the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road? We don’t think so but hey, we can dream. With almost 4000 words to delve through below, we won’t stall any longer getting into the 28 films we think might just be worth foregoing a few hours of sun to see. Read More

Talking With Jeff Nichols of ‘MIDNIGHT SPECIAL’

March 31, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Interviews, Jeff Nichols, Midnight Special, Talking With Series 2 Comments

Director Jeff Nichols faces his biggest obstacle yet this upcoming weekend: the general public. Reviews for his fourth feature film have been largely favorable so far, with a very warm SXSW debut reception, but Midnight Special launches the Arkansas filmmaker into the spotlight in a big way. With a considerable marketing push behind it and general critical support (the film is “certified fresh” at a lofty 86% on Rotten Tomatoes as of writing this), the cards look good for Nichols’ biggest picture yet. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘MIDNIGHT SPECIAL’

March 30, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Adam Driver, Bill Camp, Jaeden Liebeher, Jeff Nichols, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Midnight Special, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sam Shepard 1 Comment

Jeff Nichols is very quickly solidifying himself as a distinct and essential American voice. The 37-year old Arkansas native blends the mystic nostalgia of Steven Spielberg’s great wonders with the romanticized bayou lyricism of a Mark Twain novel. The result is often staggering, the heavy, heady crossroads of lock stock ultra violence and meaningfully sentimental morality plays. In 2012, Nichols’ snaggle-toothed fable Mud sounded the starting gun for the McConaissance, just as he basically introduced the world to Michael Shannon as a leading man in 2011’s Take Shelter. More than just a emcee for introducing (or reintroducing) us to new or reinvigorated talent, Nichols has emerged as a bold writer/director willing to take big risks and reap big rewards and Midnight Special, a work of great wonder and beauty, is blinding evidence of this fact. Read More

Blu-Ray Review: ‘THE HATEFUL EIGHT’

March 29, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Blu-Ray/DVD Reviews Tagged DVD/Blu-Ray Review, Ennio Morricone, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russel, Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson, The Hateful Eight, Walton Goggins Leave a comment

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

Out In Theaters: ‘KRISHA’

March 24, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bill Wise, Brian McOmber, Krisha, Krisha Fairchild, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Robyn Fairchild, Trey Edward Shults Leave a comment

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

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

March 22, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Adams, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ben Affleck, Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Irons, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Zack Synder 3 Comments

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

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘TRANSPECOS’

March 18, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Clifton Collins Jr., Gabriel Luna, Greg Kwedar, Jeffrey Waldron, Johnny Simmons, Reviews, SXSW 2016, Transpecos Leave a comment

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

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

March 18, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Burn Gorman, Ethan Hawke, In a Valley of Violence, James Ransone, John Travolta, Karen Gillian, Reviews, SXSW 2016, Taissa Farmiga, Ti West, Western Leave a comment

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

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘MY BLIND BROTHER’

March 16, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Adam Scott, Comedy, Jenny Slate, My Blind Brother, Nick Kroll, Reviews, Sophie Goodhart, SXSW 2016 Leave a comment

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

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘HUSH’

March 15, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Horror, Hush, John Gallagher Jr., Kate Siegel, Michael Trucco, Mike Flanagan, Reviews, Samantha Sloyan 1 Comment

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