TALK TO ME is a supremely terrifying film mixing the horrors of the restless undead with the greater horror of emotionally absent parents. The directing debut of brothers Danny and Michael Philippou is a story of quiet despair that grows geometrically as it progresses for its teenage protagonists who learn too late that the spirit… Read More »
HAUNTED MANSION
This is the not the first time that Disney has tried to cinema-ize its Haunted Mansion attraction. That perennial favorite got the film treatment 20 years ago with Eddie Murphy heading an indifferent story and a sentimental subplot that I found to be more interesting than anything involving Mr. Murphy. Alas, this latest attempt fares… Read More »
THE RIGHTEOUS — Mark O’Brien Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. Mark O’Brien is best known as a Canadian Screen Award-winning actor (GOALIE, CITY ON A HILL, HALT AND CATCH FIRE, MARRIAGE STORY, and BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE to name a few of his credits), but for THE RIGHTEOUS he wrote the script as well as directing… Read More »
THE NIGHT HOUSE
In THE NIGHT HOUSE, star/producer Rebecca Hall dares to give us a female protagonist who does not ask us to like her. In fact, she all but dares us not to. Yet, in a brilliant performance that combines pain and vitriol, she makes us empathize with a new widow who may or may not be… Read More »
WANDER DARKLY
WANDER DARKLY is the antidote to the generic rom-com. Set in the subjective viewpoint of a woman who is convinced that she is dead, it explores a relationship gone wrong using the unencumbered honesty of retrospection. The woman is Adrienne (Sienna Miller), who is always quick to point out that the father of her infant,… Read More »
MADE IN ITALY
A story well told is always worth our attention, and thus it is with MADE IN ITALY, a heart-warming tale of coming to terms with the past in order to face a future without the burden of unresolved grief and lingering complacency. Set for the most part in the spectacular Tuscan countryside, its pacing and… Read More »
FRANK VS. GOD — Henry Ian Cusick Interview
I may not have had the best phone connection when talking with Henry Ian Cusick on June 7, 2017, but his passion for intriguing roles and material that allows him to stretch as an actor came through clear as a bell. The occasion of our conversation was the online release of FRANK VS. GOD, a… Read More »
PREVENGE
Written and directed with a suitably biting edge by star Alice Lowe, PREVENGE is a droll and razor sharp black comedy of a horror film that considers the terrors of pregnancy and the maternal instinct gone askew. Very askew. Lowe, with a perfect deadpan sense of purpose, wields her kitchen knife as an instrument of… Read More »
THE SHACK
THE SHACK, based on the best-selling novel of the same name, is a well-meaning and heartfelt film that dares to tackle a fiendishly tricky question. If God is good and loves us all, why does She allow evil in the world? Couched in parables and riddles, and for all its gentleness of spirit, it arrives… Read More »
THE LAST WORD — Mark Pellington Interview
Mark Pellington is firmly in touch with his feminine side. It was one of the first thing he talked about when I interviewed him on February 27, 2017. We went on riff on the psychology of the characters in THE LAST WORD, muse on making an entertaining film with substance, and the legacy of the… Read More »