Halfway through Rogue One, I started to futz with my hair (my habit for coping with boredom). After another 20 minutes I’d flipped the part of my mophead from right to left. This movie—a reckless jaunt through the Star Wars saga’s style with none of its substance—felt like an off-brand version of Disney World’s Star Tours ride. My nausea-prone stomach begged for mercy. […]
London Film Festival 2015: The Lobster
“If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” Whether it’s the whirling infantile mind or the daydreams of a bored office worker, this thought holds a primitive interest. Clearly it’s been on Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ mind. The Lobster places us in a world where relationships are so important that those who haven’t found […]
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
I paid attention to the little things in The Force Awakens. Some of these were visual — the small creature with eyes set apart like a hammerhead shark poking its head out of the sand, the vulturous creature picking at the remains of a ship as if it were a carcass. Others were musical, like […]
Jurassic World
Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park was a cultural phenomenon. It remains an impressive movie that has captured the imagination of every child and adult, dinosaur-obsessed or not. While its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, didn’t manage to captivate audiences like its predecessor did, it remained an entertaining dinosaur-themed diversion. (Jurassic Park III, on the other hand, does not exist.) So when Universal Studios […]
The Signal
The Signal irritated me. I saw the film over three months ago, and time has not been kind to my impression of it. If I recall correctly, I left the theater this past June feeling slightly more positive than indifferent about this particular hodgepodge of sights and sounds. How things change. Here’s what I’ve learned in the last three […]
Lucy
“The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.” That was the tagline seen on the posters for Lucy. It’s useless harp on the fact that this ” 10%” theory is absolutely untrue. What matters is that this myth well-known and widespread, and so captured the imagination of Luc Besson’s potential audience. Unfortunately, […]
Guardians of the Galaxy Changed Blockbusters
A little film called Guardians of the Galaxy accomplished something extraordinary this summer. It featured a cast of characters from a lesser-known comic series, essentially subverted the entire superhero film genre and redefined the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Oh, and it also had the best August opening in box office history. Summer is the season of […]
Why CGI In Guardians of the Galaxy Works
There are many reasons to love Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s funny, it’s smart and it’s one hell of an action-packed ride. The film was a risk; unlike Captain America or Batman, almost no one knew who the these characters were before the film came out. Making a successful blockbuster out of a no-name property was no small feat. […]
Snowpiercer
Snowpiercer is a bullet train. The film, like its titular locomotive, races along at breakneck speed. It blitzes through its two hours and bursts through the earthly obstacles in its path. Joon-ho Bong packs a striking brutality into his English-language debut. The result is a unique and darkly compelling piece of speculative filmmaking. Crackling radio clips introduce […]
The Giver
Jeff Bridges spent eighteen years trying to adapt The Giver for the big screen. I wish he had succeeded earlier. One thing that became achingly apparent while watching the film is that it would have been far subtler and far more affecting ten or fifteen years ago. Lois Lowry published her Newbury Award-winning novel in 1993, and […]
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes with J and Søren
J’s Review Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is not the “savior of the summer of 2014,” and I wonder if the people praising it as such have actually been to the theater in the past couple months. As long as we’re comparing, it has none of the visual sophistication of Godzilla and completely lacks the wit of Edge […]
Guardians of the Galaxy
For the first few moments of Guardians of the Galaxy, I worried. I saw elements of tropes rearing their head instantly. I sighed at a roguish hero whose existence screamed traits of other classic movie characters. I cringed at a villain whose antics veered well into the theatrical. I gaped as names of planets, new alien […]
Under the Skin
It is a warm Friday afternoon in late April. I am sitting in a coffee shop having a conversation with an excellent teacher. He tells me to see a film called Under the Skin that’s just opened at the local Cinemark. I add it to the top of my ever-lengthening mental list, and on the following Wednesday, […]
Transcendence
“Artificial intelligence is bad, mmkay?” That’s what Wally Pfister, the cinematographer and frequent Christopher Nolan-collaborator, wants you to believe in his directorial debut, Transcendence. The death-by-sentient-computers tale is familiar ground, and it’s covered in much better fashion elsewhere. If you’re in the mood for a good tech scare, skip this film and re-watch Terminator. That film is […]
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The first Hunger Games movie pissed me off. It feels like that playing in free bet websites is more worth my time than watching that movie. Series author Suzanne Collins helped pen the film’s script herself, but the adaptation was troublingly devoid of the substance that made the book so great. Perhaps the best thing […]
Gravity
A woman, short-haired and weightless, folds her body up in relief. Light pours in through a nearby window, and as she floats gently in the sunlight, at once the image of a fetus in utero is evoked. The frame lingers here. She recovers her breath and then, her energy restored, she swims through the air. […]
Pacific Rim
In his recent review of This Is The End, Søren compared the comedy to 2011’s The Cabin in the Woods. These movies share characteristics that make them part of an exciting trend in Hollywood; films that exist as both satires and as superb examples of the genres they are satirizing. Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim does […]
Man of Steel
Full disclosure: While I am a fan of superhero movies in general, I’m not a fan of Superman; I’ve always felt that he’s too campy, and that he doesn’t have enough weaknesses as a superhero or flaws as a character. He’s too perfect. Maybe this is why Man of Steel, for all its faults, still […]
Star Trek Into Darkness
Despite a positive reception from both critics and general audiences, J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise was controversial amongst fans of the original series. While some embraced the film’s modern style, others were turned off by what they perceived to be a rejection of the spirit of the original. Star Trek the television show […]
On Abrams, Star Wars and Episode VII
After rumors started really picking up about the next director of the Star Wars franchise, Disney released a statement officially confirming that J.J. Abrams, director of the 2009 reboot of Star Trek and the more recent Super 8, will head up Episode VII. So the guy who successfully resurrected an old science fiction show has been assigned to another […]
The Beast and The New World
Director Peter Dukes has been making budget short films since 1999. In this piece, Tim and I review two of his more recent efforts. The first is a horror/fantasy werewolf film entitled The Beast starring Bill Oberst, Jr. The other is an award-winning fantasy/science fiction short entitled The New World starring Katy Townsend. The Beast One criterion on […]
Cloud Atlas
After seeing Cloud Atlas, I completely understood why it received such mixed reviews from critics. From the moment the film opens, it is immediately apparent that it is no ordinary Hollywood story. But does the risk of “uniqueness” make or break the film? Personally, I believe it was a brilliant choice. I can definitely say audiences […]
Looper
I feel it is only fair to warn you that there are very light spoilers for Looper in the review below. I have seen the movie and can assure you they are absolutely far from important given how complex the film is, but if you’re one of those people who wants to go into the movie completely fresh, I […]
Dredd
I confess that I am not intimately familiar with John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s Judge Dredd comics, nor did I have the privilege of experiencing the so-bad-it’s-good Judge Dredd starring Sly Stallone that came out in 1995. Because of this, I was completely ambivalent about the fact that Judge Dredd was getting a reboot. And yet, even as […]
A New Hope for Genre Designation
Since 1977, there has been an epic battle raging between two of the biggest franchises in popular culture. Fans of Star Trek fans and Star Wars have been at each other’s throats for years, periodically culminating in films like Kyle Newman’s farcical road trip flick Fanboys, but I have never understood why; from what I can tell, the only thing the […]
The Amazing Spider-Man
It has been a long, long decade since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man debuted in 2002. The comic book film universe has been on a roller coaster of highs and lows, producing everything from drivel like Ang Lee’s Hulk and Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand to blockbuster hits like Jon Favreau’s Iron Man and Christopher Nolan’s […]
Prometheus with Søren and Ari
Here’s how our Dueling Reviews format works: each contributor writes an independent, abbreviated, spoiler-free review of the film. Then, the contributors come together in a podcast and discuss the movie in depth. Søren’s Review I will perhaps be deemed a heretic for what I am about to say, but here it is: I am not […]
Take Shelter
Back in 2011, a little film called Take Shelter made waves in the critical world. Starring Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) and Jessica Chastain (The Help, Tree of Life), Take Shelter explores one man’s struggle with his responsibilities as a father and a husband. Amidst the drama, a helping of science fiction permeates the landscape and throughout the film, the […]
Men in Black 3
It is not often that one has the privilege of reviewing a good second sequel to an almost 15-year-old franchise. At this point in the film industry, it is commonplace to become jaded with the onslaught of sequels, chalking the lack of new intellectual properties up to the cursed dearth of originality in Hollywood. And […]
The Cabin in the Woods with Søren and Ari
Here’s how our Dueling Reviews format works: each contributor writes an independent, abbreviated, spoiler-free review of the film. Then, the contributors come together in a podcast and discuss the movie in depth. Søren’s Review The first 5 minutes of The Cabin in the Woods is a perfectly written hybrid of idle dialogue, sudden shock, and scantily-clad females: […]
Another Earth
On paper, Brit Marling’s Another Earth has an intriguing premise revolving around the possibility of another Earth-like planet suddenly appearing in our sky. This planet is easily within communication distance to our own home world, and the possibilities for a high-concept, low-budget sci-fi film seem endless. Sadly, the film merely implies a lot of squandered potential, a […]
Monsters
Writer/director Gareth Edwards made a big splash in 2010 when he released his first feature-length film Monsters, which he reportedly made for a paltry $500,000. Working with a crew of just seven people that traveled by van around across five countries in only three weeks, Edwards had high ambitions – his mission was to create an authentic romantic […]
The Iron Giant
Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant mixes adult themes about over-encroaching governments and biting political commentary with humor, heart, and a true soul. To say this film is anything less than one of the preeminent animated films of our time is to do it injustice. I do not believe any movie has been able to so deftly […]
