Out in Theaters: ’10 CLOVERFIELD LANE’

March 10, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged 10 Cloverfield Lane, Damien Chazelle, Dan Trachtenberg, J.J. Abrams, John Gallagher Jr., John Goodman, Josh Campbell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Matthew Stuecken, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

10 Cloverfield Lane is predicated on a beautifully simple catch 22: I am trapped in a room with psychopath but if I leave said room, I will most certainly die. The only safe solace in a decimated post-apocalyptic world, a bunker shared with a dangerous captor named Howard (a never-better, totally Oscar-worthy John Goodman), is indeed no safe solace at all. To hostage Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), this post-op lion’s den houses clearly seems to house a hulking threat; a man who percolates with such clear-eyed ferocity, unwavering mania and steadfast paranoia that the probably poisonous air outside seems an amenable option. But then again, what if he’s not a psychopath after all? Read More

Out In Theaters: ‘KNIGHT OF CUPS’

March 9, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Antonio Banderas, Cate Blanchet, Christian Bale, Frieda Pinto, Imogen Poots, Jason Clarke, Joe Lo Truglio, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Corrigan, Knight of Cups, Natalie Portman, Nick Kroll, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Teresa Palmer, Terrence Malick Leave a comment

Terrence Malick’s latest game of twiddle sticks cinema peppers the landscape of celebrity ennui with vacuous narrative threads and listless visual poetry. A meandering, overlong death march towards nothingness, the latest from the American auteur is a showcase of a man who’s more than worn out his welcome, who has drip-dried every ounce of juice from the same re-wrung fruit but still yet splashed it up on the screen like a car wreck. Anyone familiar with Malick’s filmography knows to expect little more of Knight of Cups than Christian Bale wandering the corridors of celebrity mansions, beautiful beach fronts and abandoned, dilapidated buildings while whispered trite reveries titter on in the background, theoretically contributing to a greater sense of purpose (that is just not there). In that regard, Malick has played to his devout audience bullheadedly, ignoring any and all critiques of his last critical flounder, To The Wonder, pursuing his own self-parodying style to pertinacious rigidity. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘EDDIE THE EAGLE’

February 25, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Christopher Walken, Dexter Fletcher, Eddie the Eagle, Hugh Jackman, Jim Broadbent, Jo Hartley, Keith Allen, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Taron Egerton 2 Comments

In 1988, Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards attended the Winter Olympics as the sole representative of the Great Britain ski jumping team. Facing active discouragement from his nation’s Olympic committee, Edwards was forced to self-fund the journey that led him to the Calgary-held Olympics, mounting his campaign on sheer determination and grit rather than skill or, you know, practice. His name became synonymous with perseverance, his bumbling visage a representation of that sportsman mantra of being the best that you can be. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘TRIPLE 9’

February 24, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Aaron Paul, Anthony Mackie, Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Hillcoat, Kate Winslet, Nicolas Karakatsanis, Norman Reedus, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Triple 9, Woody Harrelson 2 Comments

There’s so many tattered sleeves of other (greater) crime films sifting in and out of John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 that the final product plays a bit like a voodoo pincushion of greatest hits moments. There’s buttons of Heat, The Departed, American Gangster and many other crime classics, with characters seemingly beamed in from Bad Lieutenant, Sicario and End of Watch, all come to rumble in Hillcoat’s dirty little Atlanta playground. That this stable of influences is mostly able to coalesce into a largely exciting, ceaselessly dark and somewhat intelligible thriller is admirable, even if it sometimes finds itself a touch off the rails. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE WITCH’

February 13, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Anya Taylor-Joy, Craig Lathrtop, Ellie Grainger, Harvey Scrimshaw, Horror, Jarin Blaschke, Kate Dickie, Lucas Dawson, Mark Korven, Movies, Ralph Ineson, Reviews, Robert Eggers, The Witch 2 Comments

What do 1630, a silver cup, Christian fervor and a goat named Black Phillip have in common? The Witch. Unholy goodness through and through, Robert Egger‘s feature film debut is a horror masquerading as a costume drama that’s as beady, black and misshapen as the center of a goat’s eye. Beneath the dirt-stained, leather-bound waistcoats, the perfumed, toity language of the New World, the white bonnets and constrictive girdles, The Witch has a vicious, illicit and suspicious center and though admittedly scaled back on “scares” is deeply atmospheric, deeply disturbing and deeply great. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘ZOOLANDER 2’

February 10, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Stiller, Billy Zane, Christine Taylor, John Hamburg, Justin Theroux, Keifer Sutherland, Nicolas Stoller, Out in Theaters, Owen Wilson, Reviews, Will Ferrell, Zoolander 2 2 Comments

Ben Stiller‘s approach to round two of the Zoo is akin to chucking a baby bird from the nest to see if it will fly or plummet, only to discover a 25-pound lead weight secured to said birdling’s ankle bits. No scene demonstrates this better than when Hansel (Owen Wilson), in an attempt to elicit Derek’s (Stiller) magical modeling stopping power, is throwing objects at the now-out-of-fashion Derek Zoolander. Failing to summon the “fire” that stopped Mutagatu’s (Will Ferrell) M-shaped throwing star and saved the Malaysian Prime Minister all those years back, each progressively larger prop strikes Zoolander’s duck-face curtly in the sucker. By object four or five, a tasty-looking bottle of Reposado that acts as an accidental stand-in for the cockeyed audience, Zoolander cries out, “This just isn’t working.” No Ben Stiller, it really, really isn’t. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘DEADPOOL’

February 8, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Brianna Hildebrand, Deadpool, Ed Skrein, Morena Baccarin, Out in Theaters, Paul Wernick, Reviews, Rhett Reese, Ryan Reynolds, Stefan Kapičić, Tim Miller 5 Comments

Deadpool has been lurking around the primordial soup of supers since his debut print appearance in February of 1991. Striking a nerve with comic fans fancying some bite with their bark and some rabies to their Cujos, Deadpool arrived on the scene a supervillian before slipping into the moral grays of anti-hero-dom and donning those infamously R-rated wisecracks into his persona like a latex-tight getup. By the time he was leading his own franchise, a cultly rabid surrounded the merc with a mouth like bush flies buzzing around fresh-squeezed dookie. When transported to tinsel town in 2009’s much derided X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Deadpool found himself properly trounced; literally nutless, drained of personality and wit, with mouth rendered useless. The character was as effectively brain-dead as the project he found himself housed within. The tongue-tied, tatted-up war boy that was Deadpool circa 2009 was quickly relegated to the bin of supers who couldn’t withstand the transition to the silver screen and even the suits at Fox did all they could to forget this whole X-Men Origins thing ever happened in the first place. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘HAIL, CAESAR!’

February 3, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alden Ehrenreich, Caesar!, Channing Tatum, Coen Brothers, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Hail, Jonah Hill, Josh Brolin, Out in Theaters, Ralph Fiennes, Reviews, Scarlett Johnasson, Tilda Swinton 4 Comments

The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! exists in some zany cinematic purgatory of indecisiveness. Their critique of 1950s Hollywood dwells in an occasionally bemusing middle ground; that is, it can’t decide whether it wants to be a skewering of or a love letter to the golden era of tinsel town. Those who’ve found solace in the bewilderingly esoteric arms of A Serious Man or the bombast of The Hudsucker Proxy will likely concede Hail, Caesar! as a new coming for the seriocomic duo but I like my Coen’s like I like my coffee and Hail, Caesar!’s semi-satirical goofball makeup couldn’t be further from the blackest of comedy that defines the brothers’ greatest ventures. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE FINEST HOURS’

January 28, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Foster, Casey Affleck, Chris Pine, Craig Gillespie, Eric Bana, Holliday Grainger, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Finest Hours 2 Comments

Craig Gillespie experienced his breakout “hit” in 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival with Lars and the Real Girl. You know the one. That strange indie splash that made leagues of women (and men) jealous of an inanimate sex doll, quasi-adorably (and entirely eerily) doted on by a mustached Ryan Gosling. From there, Gillespie directed an underrated and ably cast remake of Fright Night. As a suave vampire, Collin Ferrell gave his crowning scenery (and neck) chewing performance. Some would call this Gillespie’s transition to the mainstream and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong, though the Disney-produced baseball drama The Million Dollar Arm really saw the last twinkle of a celebrated indie director taken by the vast empire of film as multi-media conglomerate. Read More

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’

January 27, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Aja Naomi King, Armie Hammer, Nate Parker, Reviews, Sundance 2016, Sundance Reviews, The Birth of a Nation 1 Comment

Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation is an urgent primal scream from American history’s darkest hour. Parker produces, writes, directs and stars in this much needed telling of the trials and tribulations of slave-turned-revolutionary Nat Turner. The relatively well-to-do preacher’s eyes are open to a new interpretation of the good book when his master shops out his sermons, profiteering off Turner’s calming demeanor to quell rebellion amongst more brutalized slaves. He’s soon in high demand from the most vicious slave owners across the land, all who want less sass and more backbreaking for their neglected and enslaved laborers. Read More