New zombies, new rules. If TRAIN TO BUSAN did nothing but find a new take on zombies, it would be worth your time, but this Korean gem goes the extra yardage to gift us with an engrossing story that contains only a soupçon of well-regulated sappy sentiment. It’s far more interested in observing what happens… Read More »
TOO LATE
Kierkegaard, noted Existentialist and proto-Absurdist, once opined that life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. As a cinematic exploration of the tragic and comedic implications of that, there is Dennis Hauck’s wistful neo-Noir, TOO LATE, a film that employs a strategic insouciance as it nimbly plays with the time/space continuum… Read More »
AMERICAN ULTRA
There is a bold sense of anarchy to AMERICAN ULTRA that is as unrepentant as it is unpredictable.
How to Wield A CANDLESTICK
It takes a great deal of moxie to begin a film by referencing Hitchcock in both title sequence and score, but director/co-writer Christopher Presswell’s CANDLESTICK does just that, and then, with an impudent wink at the audience, does a more than credible job of making good on its promise. An intelligently crafted plot, driven by… Read More »
Perry Blackshear, MacLeod Andrews & Evan Dumouchel Insist that THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE is a first-rate existential horror film, as well as a psychological thriller. I got the same vibe watching it that I had gotten watching PI and BRICK, the maiden efforts of Darren Aronofsky and Rian Johnson respectively. Writer/director Perry Blackshear understands more than just how to create evocative, even sumptuous, visuals, he knows… Read More »
Avoid THE LOFT
The true test of a mystery is if, after the mechanics of the misdirection are revealed, those mechanics are as impressive as the misdirection itself. In THE LOFT, this is indubitably the case. Fiendishly clever, it keeps us off-balance with such finesse what we are unaware that our balance has been impaired, and, when we… Read More »
A MOST VIOLENT YEAR for Oscar Isaac
Sometimes in an interview there’s a defining line. And in talking to Oscar Isaac about JC Chandor’s A MOST VIOLENT YEAR on December 5, 2014, it came towards the end our conversation, when I had asked what I called the “obligatory Star Wars question”. As Isaac was describing his method for getting into character as an… Read More »
A MOST VIOLENT YEAR Is A Most Excellent Film
A MOST VIOLENT YEAR begins, appropriately enough, with its protagonist, Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) running. Though this is merely jogging through the snowy landscape of 1981 New York, he will spend the rest of the film running more purposefully either literally, figuratively, or both, as he scrambles to overcome fate and the fickleness of human… Read More »
EMPIRE
EMPIRE is a nitty, gritty look at life on the mean streets of the wrong part of New York. Its message, crime doesn’t pay, isn’t a new one, but any film that proffers a moral compass is one worth paying attention to. Also worth paying attention to is co-producer John Leguizamo’s performance as Victor Rosa,… Read More »
RED EYE
Most horror films are dedicated to the proposition that females are prey and little else.