Cannibals Need Companionship Too In Rangy ‘BONES AND ALL’

November 23, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged André Holland, Arseni Khachaturan, Bones and All, Chloë Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Luca Guadagnino, Michael Stuhlbarg, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Taylor Russell 1 Comment

Sympathy for The Devil

Luca Guadagnino has made a career of sucking every last ounce of fat from the narrative bones of his projects. From his arthouse critical darling Call Me By Your Name, a sweeping pedophilic queer romance, to his celebrated – though gaudy and overwrought – remake of Suspiria, Guadagnino suckles on the teat of indulgence. This viewer has found Guadagnino’s style overtly lugubrious, feigning depth by overstaying his welcome, applying a Terrence Malick aesthetic template to otherwise intriguing conceptual pitches. This is no different in his latest adaptation, Bones and All, a cannibal love story that 100% should be my jam but wasn’t entirely. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘CALL ME BY YOUR NAME’

December 20, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged André Aciman, Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name, James Ivory, Luca Guadagnino, Michael Stuhlbarg, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Timothée Chalamet 2 Comments

Call Me By Your Name is that annual run-away critical darling that far too many are quick to call a modern “masterpiece” that has good odds to bore most general audiences to tears. Clocking in at 132 minutes, the film from Italian Luca Guadagnino is long-winded indeed, emphasizing its European cinematic roots by having its characters spend a good chunk of their screen time staring into the distance, ruminating internally, sighing deeply and smoking cigarettes. After all, what’s more European than smoking cigarettes and staring off into the great beyond? Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE SHAPE OF WATER’

December 13, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alexandre Desplat, Best of 2017, Doug Jones, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer, Paul D. Austerberry, Reviews, Richard Jenkins, Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water 1 Comment

Far and away the best of Guillermo del Toro’s English language features, The Shape of Water, like Dr. Frankenstein stitching together disparate appendages, conjoins the romanticism of the 1930s Classic Universal Monsters Movies, the conspiratorial grit of the 70s Hammer Films and a splash of Max, Mon Amour to craft a truly one-of-a-kind, genre-bending splat of modern monster cinema. Breathtaking, adorable and fundamentally weird as hell, The Shape of Water is a slice of well-germinated fan fiction that’s so much more than its leaflet thin description of Deaf Girl falls for Fish Man could possibly describe. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘TRUMBO’

November 20, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alan Tudyk, Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Jay Roach, John Goodman, John McNamara, Louie C.K., Michael Stuhlbarg, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Trumbo 3 Comments

Bryan Cranston is a treasure. Don’t forget that fact. As blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, he whirls his cigarette (like him, a captive in an ornate holder), sitting in still bathwater, raving about the inadequacies of American political structures in that manic brilliance that he so finely honed playing Walter White. That Trumbo is the brand of all-inclusive biopic that’ll leave you pining for less is disappointing but it doesn’t discount Cranston leading man prowess or make his performance any less tasty. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘STEVE JOBS’

October 14, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Aaron Sorkin, Daniel Pemberton, Danny Boyle, Elliot Graham, Jeff Daniels, Kate Winslet, Michael Fassbender, Michael Stuhlbarg, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Seth Rogen, Steve Jobs 2 Comments

A sweetly sour punch of cinematic vitality, Steve Jobs is alive, it’s kinetic and it’s an intellectual kick to the shins. With a soaring foundation in Aaron Sorkin’s lively script, the dramatic biography hums along in real time, deconstructing the mythology of a recently controversial figure, the eponymous Steve Jobs, as he navigates his way to the top of the personal computer heap. From top to bottom, no detail has been spared as Danny Boyle’s signature aesthetic doddlings add a certain touch of magical realism to the affair while Michael Fassbender’s award-worthy central performance grounds the film in a degree of stone-washed, near-robotic cynicism. It’s an odd marriage of misanthropic megalomania and surprisingly salty sentiment that works for almost every minute of its run time. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘PAWN SACRIFICE’

September 17, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bobby Fischer, Edward Zwick, Michael Stuhlbarg, Out in Theaters, Pawn Sacrifice, Peter Sarsgaard, Reviews, Steven Knight, Tobey Maguire Leave a comment

Chess players be mad crazy. This is the conceit of Edward Zwick’s latest film, Pawn Sacrifice. Telling the tale of Bobby Fischer‘s rise to the title of Chess World Champion, Zwick washes away the taste of Bobby Fischer the puny, prodigal chessmaster like with a mind-erasing swill of Everclear, replacing it with Bobby Fischer, megalomaniac, paranoid, delusional, dedicated anti-Semite. His competition, Boris Spassky, does not fare much better. These dudes ‘r’ nuts. Read More