Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
Snowden is a biopic about a man of great courage with none of its own. Opting to tell the story of the globally-recognized NSA agent turned whistleblower, writer-director Oliver Stone and co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald craft a narrative akin to a fan fiction version of Snowden’s Wikipedia page – except one should expect more nuance and knowledge from the latter – complete with unnecessary sex scenes, dramatically empty melodrama and, per Stone’s contract, loose-lipped partisan pandering. Read More
Beyond darkness. Beyond logic. Beyond hope. The latest Star Trek film zooms beyond at hyper speed, rarely pausing to strike a Thinker’s pose. (Though it would rather like you to think it does.) Whereas Auguste Rodin’s bronze baby heralds contemplation, Star Trek Beyond plows through any fleeting semblance of intelligence like a horde of metal space bees engaged in kamikaze. Failing to ruminate on why audiences ought to care one iota about its disposable, busied antics. Hurrying from one expense-sheet-filling green-screen scuttlebutt to the next. Over-relying on character relationships that are age old but still skin-deep. Just another blockbuster puffy with CG steroids that’s lacking a brain, passing off sentimentality as heart and blahly going where we’ve all certainly been before. Read More