Out in Theaters: WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS

August 28, 2015 by Chris Bunker Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Emily Ratajkowski, Max Joseph, Out in Theaters, Reviews, We Are Your Friends, Wes Bentley, Zac Efron Leave a comment

I could rant and rave about EDM culture till the MDMAddicts foam at the mouth. What’s supposed to be about music really only appears to focus on grabbing the nearest thing and doing it — be it man, woman or drug. Famous DJs make trash music that sells because it’s what we all want to hear. A new-age art form that’s endemic in my generation, EDM shows more about how we’ve raged than how we’ve changed. I hoped We Are Your Friends might delve into the DJ lifestyle that’s evolved into an addiction. At some points, it blurs the lines and senses and manages to say something poignant. Then it OD’s and it’s a bad trip from there. Read More

Out in Theaters: Z FOR ZACHARIAH

August 27, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chris Pine, Craig Zobel, Margo Robbie, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Robert C. O'Brien, Z for Zachariah 1 Comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review

There are so many pivot points in Z for Zachariah that it becomes hard to nail down exactly what director Craig Zobel intended for it. At one point, it seems decidedly about gender politics, at another about race relations, and eventually it boiled down to themes of suspicion, greed and jealousy. Spliced with a domineering amount of ambiguity. All this from a cast of three. To call it thematically rich may be overly generous – maybe thematically crowded would hit the nail on the head more – but nonetheless, it strives for something thoughtful and great, even when it comes up just short. Read More

Out in Theaters: DIGGING FOR FIRE

August 27, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson, Chris Messina, Digging For Fire, Jake Johnson, Joe Swanberg, Orlando Bloom, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Rosemarie DeWitt Leave a comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review.

Displaying the kind of laid back candor that sums up the mumblecore founding member, Joe Swanberg revealed that once you have kids, “life is a clusterfuck.” And so is Digging For Fire. Kinda. A lesser effort in the aftermath of two eruptively sweet victories (Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas), Digging for Fire takes on the humps and bumps of marriage and the battle of young parenthood with an enviable cast for any director. Read More

Out in Theaters: TURBO KID

August 26, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged ABCs of Death, Anouk Whissell, François Simard, Horror, Laurence Laboeuf, Michael Ironside), Munro Chambers, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The RKSS Collective, Turbo Kid, Yoann-Karl Whissell Leave a comment

*This is a reprint of our 2015 SXSW review.

This is the future. Bicycles remain the only mode of transport and they scream down rubble road decorated with human skulls, past junk yards littered with bits and bobs of discarded robots and towards the odd outskirts ripe for plundering. The land is overrun with masked miscreants of a steam-punk Road Warrior meets Jason Voorhees variety picking through the remains of a scrapyard Earth. The leader of the bicycled clan, a nefarious crime boss known as Zeus (Michael Ironside), has concocted a way to transform humans into water – now the world’s most precious resource. This is 1997. Read More

Out in Theaters: THE SUMMER HOUSE

August 26, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Out in Theaters, Uncategorized Tagged Curtis Burz, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Summer House 1 Comment

The Summer House is one of those “look how f*cked up the rich are so that the rest of us can feel better about not having any money because at least we’re good people” bones we get thrown so often at the cinema these days. This time around, behind the curtain of the “seemingly put-together” family of three stands a father who, while extraordinarily resourceful in business and prudent in financial planning, conceals a nasty predilection for young boys. Oh yeah, it’s a pedophile movie as well. Read More

Out in Theaters: NO ESCAPE

August 25, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged John Erick Dowdle, Lake Bell, No Escape, Out in Theaters, Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan, Reviews 1 Comment

Originally packaged with a much more apt title (The Coup), the ambiguously-named No Escape is still the second surprise thriller of the summer (the first being the shockingly excellent The Gift). John Erick Dowdle, who delivered the monstrously underrated As Above/So Below last year, again proves his knack for preeminently nail-biting sequences with a 103-minute zombie feature that replaces said zombies with radicalized “Asians”. Whereas zombies lack motive, the bloodthirsty nature of the enemy in No Escape is their defining feature and makes for antagonists who are thinly drawn but hugely imposing. Moments of cliche are all but drown out by the overwhelming panic at the heart of the film, a film that manages to tap into the epicenter of terror – having your family hacked to pieces in front of your eyes. It is, in three words: intense as f*ck. Read More

Documentary Dossier: LISTEN TO ME MARLON

August 23, 2015 by Eric Brown Posted in Documentaries, Out in Theaters Tagged A Streetcar Named Desire, Documentaries, Last Tango in Paris, Listen to Me Marlon, Marlon Brando, Mutiny on the Bounty, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Listen to Me Marlon opens to an analog recording of Marlon Brando contemplating the future of movies with a crude CG rendering of his face, now aged, as his mouth moves to the words spoken: words that express his synthetic representation in a place where he feels nothing is real. The tape is titled “Self-hypnosis.” One, among bags filled with hundreds of others, is Brando’s self-diagnostic foray into inner solitude, an intimate voice with rich precedence naked for the first time. The audio recordings contain his ruminations, self-reflections, observations, and personal confessions, which are spread out over a multi-textured pastiche culled together with the cooperation of the Brando estate. Read More

Out in Theaters: AMERICAN ULTRA

August 20, 2015 by J Simpson Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged American Ultra, Connie Britton, Jesse Eisenberg, John Leguizamo, Kristen Stewart, Max Landis, Nima Nourizadeh, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Topher Grace Leave a comment

Everybody knows that smoking weed can make you paranoid. And anybody who’s spent much time in Cannabis Culture probably knows that guy, who spends too much time getting high, drawing weird comics and spouting weird theories. But what if those weird, paranoid theories turned out to be true? This is the premise around which Nima Nourizadeh‘s unlikely new stoner/action/comedy/romance American Ultra is built, and ultimately succeeds. Read More

Out in Theaters: 6 YEARS

August 20, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged 6 Years, Ben Rosenfield, Hannah Fidell, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Taissa Farmiga 1 Comment

*This is a reprint of our SXSW 2015 review.

In the throes of first love, life becomes exasperatingly disoriented. We convince ourselves that there is but one person who can appreciate, understand and care for us and that that person should not be let go, lest we never experience such a sensation of belonging again. Future aspirations come to head with plans of fidelity and the person you are and the person you want to become begin to be at odds. With 6 Years, Hannah Fidell is able to poke her camera into the epicenter of a relationship at the structural crossroads of graduating from college as they differentiate the needs of the “me” versus the needs of the “us”. Read More

Documentary Dossier: BEST OF ENEMIES

August 16, 2015 by Brittany Cullen Posted in Documentaries, Out in Theaters Tagged Best of Enemies, Documentaries, Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge, Out in Theaters, Reviews, William F. Buckley Jr. Leave a comment

Best of Enemies gives a gripping account of the momentous ideological clash between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal during the 1968 presidential primaries. In a bid for ratings, ABC (widely considered the “budget car rental of television news”) pitted conservative political commentator Buckley against Vidal, the creator of transsexual literary icon Myra Breckinridge and the one person (bar all communists) whom Buckley had sworn never to appear on screen with. Read More