Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
There was an age of Will Ferrell where just about anything the slapstick buffoon did would conjure a hearty laugh from me. His performances in Anchorman, as the verbose, showboating newsman Ron Burgundy, and Step Brothers, as perma-man-child Brendan Huff, send me into a goofy rage of hacking cough fits to this day. But it’s been a hot minute since Ferrell has been able to lock himself and his signature non-sequitors into a winning project and Daddy’s Home continues that losing streak. Read More
Some might find it odd that France’s submission to the 2016 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film is indeed a film that takes place in Northern Turkey with a Turkish cast that deals chiefly with Turkish issues. After watching it though, they will be no doubts to its quality as Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s smartly-named Mustang is a sharp, important piece of international cinema that pushes key issues of marginalized women’s rights to the forefront in a tactful but natural manner. Read More
Previously titled That’s What I’m Talking About, Richard Linklater‘s 80s college baseball comedy-drama Everybody Wants Some saw its first trailer hit the internet tonight. The film, opening in theaters on April 15, 2016 but premiering a month before at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival, stars Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell and Zoey Deutch. Linklater has called the film a “spiritual sequel” to his 1993 cult classic Dazed and Confused and a natural follow-up to Boyhood which followed the story of Mason from age six up until his first days at college. Read More
Adam McKay capped off his 2010 absurdist comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell with an out-of-field infographic featuring the numerics on Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme, bailout statistics and insulting ratios between executive and average employee compensation. A strangely politicized move at the time, especially considering chasing the heels of a movie where ho bos band together to have coitus in a Prius, but one that makes sense in the context of McKay’s star-studded passion project The Big Short. Read More
There has been an awakening. With a $238 million opening weekend, the box office roared to live, stoked by the Mustafar-sized conflagration of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, quickly making this seventh Star Wars film the biggest opening of all time and putting it on track to dethrone the highest grossing films ever. But all money aside, the real question on everyone’s lips were, is it good? Thankfully, the answer was a resounding yes. With a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, critics and fans alike have rallied around the J.J. Abrams product like Ewoks on a post-Empire Endor. But that doesn’t mean that the film didn’t have its share of lows amongst the highs. Read More
Paolo Sorrentino‘s Youth is a picturesque bore. A wandering meditation on the lives of those who’ve already lived it, Youth begs questions about family and legacy and the ugliness involved with both. Not unlike Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, Youth features handsome camerawork and lively, thoughtful performances but is ultimately unable to plant much reason for remembering it once it’s past or passing a recommendation along. Read More
Telling the rousing story of Lili Elbe, a landscape artist who was the first to undergo gender correction surgery, Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper enlists a talented crew lead by last year’s Oscar-winner Eddie Redmaye and illustrious hot ticket item Alicia Vikander. Both show off their acting chops like wolves gnashing at lambs but there’s an uncomfortable air of assumed prestige to Redmayne’s whisper-heavy performance and Tom Hooper’s mawkish tendencies on full display. Redmayne’s clearly a phenomenal talent but, in a role that requires so much externalization of ticking internal clockwork, his turn as Lili risks being too showy, much like the film itself. On the surface, The Danish Girl is among the most “progressive” movies of the year and yet it can never stay the feeling of being tame, almost safe. Read More
A long time ago in 1977, Star Wars (back then there was no ‘A New Hope’ to it) struck a cultural nerve, resonating like a tuning fork to the farthest reaches of the known galaxy. A flurry of rabid fans stormed the theaters, salivating for a product that was by and large rejected at first glance (Fun Fact: Fox had to strong-arm theater programmers by withholding the right to screen The Other Side of Midnight unless they also screened Star Wars, a film 99 out of 100 people probably don’t recognize today.) If they only knew the power of this sci-fi behemoth, one that even today holds the record for second highest grossing film when adjusted for inflation, there is no doubt that they would have flooded their holy grounds with screening after screening of the lauded space opera but history is a fickle thing. Just ask all those people caught on the news praising Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Read More
OG Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins has been lending himself out to little movie roles since he left the band in 1986. Arguably his most prominent and commercial appearance came out of his run on Sons of Anarchy as the muscle of white supremacist group the League of American Nationalists. In the role, Rollins hinted at a dangerous side – ok, “hinted” is a vast understatement – whereas with He Never Died, he pairs that dangerous edge with some delightfully droll humor. The combination keep the wheels turning in this laugh-out loud funny and mostly compelling midnighter. Read More
Macbeth, an extremely well-made adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most revered tragedies, boasts inspired cinematography and voracious performances though is unlikely to win over anyone who’s not already a ravenous student of the Bard’s distinctly tricky prose. The film from director Justin Kurzel (The Snowtown Murders) is Shakespeare for Shakespeare buffs, one that – not unlike The Snowtown Murders – will inevitably shed casual viewers for the sheer indecipherableness of its composition. Read More