7
Blending nonfiction and philosophical fantasy, director Adam Bhala Lough’s documentary Hot Sugar’s Cold World is more than your typical paint-by-numbers music doc. It’s a deep and satisfying portrait of electronic musician Hot Sugar, someone oft-referred to as a modern-day Mozart. As is his music, this film is a sensory experience that is best suited for a large screen and a loud sound system.
Nearly 40 short films were screened at the Fifteenth Annual Screamfest Horror Film Festival which was once again held at the world famous TCL Chinese 6 Theatre in Hollywood, Calif.
These films represent a wide variety of themes inherent to the horror
6
Nearly a year after its original television airing on ABC comes the release of Toy Story That Time Forgot, a holiday special continuing the Toy Story saga, on Blu-ray and Digital HD. Clocking in at a mere 22 minutes, fans of the brand will likely be disappointed that their pals Woody and Buzz had such little screen time. And while it was dubbed a “holiday event,” there was barely more than a glimpse of a Christmas tree, so it isn’t exactly a mood-setting short.
7
The wonders of The Wonders do not reveal themselves until the tail-end of its slice-of-life narrative of coming-of-age in the Tuscan countryside. Not until the family at the center of the film treks out to an island, clad in togas and laurel wreaths, to participate in a television show competition to crown the next "countryside wonder", a distinction that would solve all of their financial problems. It is during this stretch of the story that magical realism creeps into the proceedings, transforming the entire affair into something marvelous.
![Burnt_Poster2_FINAL[2]](https://cdn-1.filmpulse.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/16185438/Burnt_Poster2_FINAL2-440x652.jpg)
5
Coming out of the gate strong, Burnt has an interesting-enough premise. A highfalutin, two-Michelin-star chef (Bradley Cooper) hits rock bottom (off screen) and pays his debt shucking oysters in Louisiana. Having gained international recognition in Paris, the American hothead Adam Jones, felt the need to make amends (to himself?) before trying for his third star. Now, empowered with a renewed confidence, he aims to “get the band back together” for another shot at the industry’s highest honor.
Nearly 40 short films were screened at the Fifteenth Annual Screamfest Horror Film Festival which was once again held at the world famous TCL Chinese 6 Theatre in Hollywood, Calif.
These films represent a wide variety of themes inherent to the horror
8
Re-Animator, Frankenhooker and The Bride of Frankenstein are films whose stories were inspired by classic pieces of literature – each film being notable, or infamous, for its time. Now comes what can be best described as “Re-Animator for the 21st century.” It’s Tyler MacIntyre’s Patchwork, featuring Tory Stopler and Corey Sorenson.
6
Playing out like a modern-day and decidedly cleaned-up version of Ms. 45, Matthew A. Brown’s Julia opts for a more arthouse approach to the rape-revenge subgenre, excelling in in visuals while also delivering a gruesome and twisted fantasy.
Within the first few moments of its opening sequence, where we see the title character of Julia (Ashley C. Williams) slowly ascending an escalator as the credits appear on screen, it's immediately evident that this is going to be something different than your typical straight-to-VOD horror dreck.
9.5
With two of the best performances I have seen in a movie for some time, the co-stars of Room, Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, more than carry the film; they have created something of a mini masterpiece.
Emma Donoghue’s story about a 5-year-old boy named Jack, told from the child’s perspective, is treated with dignity and reverence by director Lenny Abrahamson, who brings Donoghue’s riveting tale to life on the silver screen.
7.5
If nothing else, 2015 should be remembered as the most experimental year in studio filmmaking in years. Between big-budget BDSM romantic comedies, post apocalyptic pictures with guitar-flamethrower-wielding dudes and Michael Mann’s nearly avant-garde techno-thriller, every unconventional choice has been fascinating at least, delightful at best. Time to add Guillermo Del Toro’s latest, Crimson Peak, to that list.
5.5
Eugene Kotlyarenko appears to be a bit of a showman; a prankster, if you will, decidedly implementing a ruse in order to pique interest and advertise his latest film, A Wonderful Cloud, to the populace, enticing viewers to witness abject depravity unsuitable for “God-fearing New Yorkers”.
7.5
90s vibes/aesthetics burrow their roots deep within the fabric of Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman’s L for Leisure, a loosely-connected collage of vacations over the stretch of 1992-93 school year presented in the hazy confines of the sun-saturated 16mm film frames. More a series of memento-style footage of downtime and recreation than an actual, standard narrative experience. Horn and Kalman’s debut feature-length possesses a certain casualness thanks to its breezy framework, where mellow is the goal and boogie-boarding is crucial.
7
For years, the cinematic Halloween season was always marked by a new movie; recently it was more about Saw or Paranormal Activity.
For some reason, the powers that be decided it was more profitable to move the Michael Myers franchise, Halloween, to a late-summer release. Since then, horror fans were left with nothing more than standard, cookie-cutter horror flicks that didn’t really capture the spirit of the holiday but focused more on the scares, assuming the film actually delivered any.
8.5
Clocking in at 14 minutes, imbued with a literary air through well-executed voiceover (something I normally loathe), Six Cents in the Pocket is an incomparable work of culled elements from various art forms - theatre, painting, cinema and the aforementioned arena of literature - distilled into a homogenized, singular entity. With ephemeral sequences of vague context, the film’s structure is reminiscent of a classical work of literature, half-remembered, verging on anonymity, cobbled together from the residuals of memory.
8
Disney’s 1992 hit classic, Aladdin, is now available in a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD combo pack that the studio is calling the film’s “Diamond Edition.” The animated tale about a poor thief who manages to get his hand on a magic lamp, release the genie inside and win over the heart of a princess will no doubt be a nostalgic return to the world that so many of us grew up watching in our living rooms on our VHS tapes.
7
Squatters. They are people who move into a vacant domicile and claim it to be their own. Taking advantage of loopholes in the law and doing their best to circumvent the system, they can be a property owner’s worst nightmare. Unlawful retainers
