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Out in Theaters: ‘LIGHTS OUT’

David F. Sandberg’s concept horror film Lights Out is as simple as it is curt. Clipping along at a respectable trot, the film written by Eric Heisserer (The Thing remake, A Nightmare on Elm Street remake) admirably makes use of its sparse 81 minute run time but its bare bones conceit – a malevolent photophobic entity attacks an emotionally susceptible family –  feels the creative constraints of its two-minute source material (a viral horror short, also from Sandberg.) Read More

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Out In Theaters: ‘KNIGHT OF CUPS’

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