The found footage genre. The genre where the audience is watching “recently discovered” footage about an event or in some cases a mystery. It raised eyebrows and churned stomachs in 1980 with Cannibal Holocaust. It came to prominence with the immensely successful and trend setting 1999 release The Blair Witch Project. It likely reached its zenith with the Paranormal Activity franchise. Primarily a staple in the horror genre the found footage film has met with mostly disastrous results. Chernobyl Diaries, The Amityville Haunting and Apollo 18 are just a few titles that have used the format and all of them were pretty bad films. Now comes Brian Netto, who makes his directorial debut, and his refreshing and mostly effective found footage thriller, Delivery.
It has been a long time since I have seen such a surreal and psychedelic film as Filth. Although it started strong, it became increasingly bizarre as the minutes rolled on, and by the end I had all but given up on the film’s main character, Bruce (James McAvoy). It is not a long movie, but it is not a tight one either; it hops and skips from one thing to the next with perhaps the only constant being that Bruce misses his wife and child who have, for whatever reasons, left him before the film’s chronology begins.
Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro wrote and directed Beyond the Grave, setting it in his native Brazil and filming it in Portuguese. The result is one of the most incoherent films I have seen as I remained at a loss for what has happening from moment to moment. There seems to be – at its heart – a supernatural story involving a demon in a post-apocalyptic world and the police officer hell bent on killing it; I like that idea, but the execution left much to be desired.
Cold in July is not only an intensely gripping and taut thriller, but also proves to be director Jim Mickle’s most astute and assured feature to date. Although the premise and setup lay the film out as a typical revenge thriller, Cold in July takes some very quick turns, resulting in intrigue and mystery around every corner. With some great performances, including a standout role from Don Johnson, and a fantastic score from Jeff Grace, this is the type of pulp crime drama I simply can’t get enough of.
Since Bryan Singer’s 2000 film there have been six sequels/prequels/spin-offs produced. Of them all, many considered 2003’s X2: X-Men United, also directed by Singer, to not only be the best in the franchise but one of the best comic book films ever produced. After a trilogy of films with the original cast, they stepped aside for their younger counterparts in Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class and a pair of films revolving around Hugh Jackman’s character Wolverine. Now, fourteen years later Singer returns to the franchise and delivers the best film in the series and one of the best comic book films ever produced.
Try as one might, but it is seemingly impossible not to start a review for Alejandro Jodorowsky’s newest film, The Dance of Reality, without mentioning the fact that the Chilean visionary has not directed a film in a little over two decades. Not only is he back, he is back with his particular brand of psychedelic abstraction, frames upon frames brimming with vibrant, kaleidoscopic set-pieces that only Jodorowsky’s imagination can conjure.
If you’ve seen Peter Blackmann’s previously released short film, Stalled Love, you’ll find yourself in familiar territory with his latest, The Package. This 8-minute vignette revolves around a receptionist at a law firm receiving a mysterious pink package from a courier with instructions to give it to one of the partners. Speculation begins creeping in as she and one of the other partners make guesses as to what would be housed in a small, elongated, vibrating box.
If you crave an above-average monster movie, then Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla is just the ticket for you. It combines a few memorable characters with a mega-monster that – like any previous Godzilla movie – wreaks havoc on a major city. The 2014 version tells a story different from previous Godzilla outings and its originality is one of its greatest assets. This is a film that could have been clichéd and mediocre at best, but it manages to rise above with pulse-pounding special effects and true-to-life human drama.
Melodramatic manipulation is onstage in a rundown section of 1920s Manhattan where young female immigrants persevere burlesque and prostitution in their unwavering pursuits of the elusive American Dream. A life filled at first with a solidarity in sorority among the bathhouses and living quarters, sporadically giving way to self-preservation through an instinctual survival skill set, James Gray's melodramatic, yet realistically bleak, depiction of one Polish woman's quest for the American Dream, not only for herself but also for her sister, currently quarantined at Ellis Island with tuberculosis.
Although Million Dollar Arm is far from perfect, it’s a family-friendly film great for a rainy afternoon after the kids’ little-league game. The true-story-inspired plot revolves around the first two Indian Major League Baseball players (Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel) and the ridiculous, yet successful publicity stunt that sports agent J.B. Bernstein (played by Mad Men’s Jon Hamm) orchestrated in 2008. Hamm brings his delicious suaveness to the silver screen as J.B., who is out of work and almost out of money and makes a major gamble with his career.
Just over halfway through Don Peyote, there is a scene in which star Dan Fogler breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience. The film then cuts to a cameo by Topher Grace acting as Dan’s agent watching said scene and Grace’s character comments that since Fogler wrote the script, he has only himself to blame for what (a) is happening with his character or (b) what the audience is seeing or perhaps both.
We currently live in a society where everyone is constantly connected to a glowing screen, cataloging and recording their everything thought. From our favorite movies and TV shows, to what we had for breakfast, to our relationship status, most of us have become open books to the world. In the short film App, writer/director Alexander Berman explores this topic and how sometimes it’s best to let your heart do the computing.
Playing out like the claustrophobic feel-bad films of Michael Haneke, John Brian King’s Redlands is a tough movie to get through, but the excellent camerawork and astute directing make this a worthwhile tale of tragic brutality. It has an undeniably arthouse
The newly released Dutch thriller App is the first film of its kind that encourages the audience to use their cell phones during the film. By making clever use of second screen technology, the companion app runs on your phone as the action plays out on the big screen, enhancing your movie watching experience in interesting way. Yes, it certainly is a gimmick, but it’s a fun gimmick nonetheless...
2014 appears to be the year of the doppelganger, or more specifically, the year of film adaptations based on doppelganger-centric literature as writer/director Richard Ayoade rolls out his sophomore effort, The Double, co-written with Avi Korine based on the novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Much like his debut, 2010's Submarine, Ayoade's latest cinematic offering showcases his ability to pantomime his various influences, married perfectly with his deadpan wit and humor; however, with his latest he gradually begins to display a distinctive visual...
Director Ti West proves once again that he’s the master of slow-burn dread in his latest thriller, The Sacrament, which provides an interesting spin on the infamous Jonestown massacre. Although I’ve grown very weary of the mockumentary as a storytelling device, West proves that in the right hands, it can be used to a film’s benefit.
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