8
“Love is a monster” is the tagline for the latest film from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the directors of the underrated horror film Resolution. In the case of their film Spring, it is both metaphorically and physically true.
7
At once a history lesson via travelogue and a relationship drama of sorts, Eugène Green’s latest film, La Sapienza, oscillates between scholarly discourses on the subject of Roman Baroque architecture and the importance of remembering and incorporating elements of the past. What starts out as cold and mechanical slowly warms up, becoming enlivened from the same welcoming light that is discussed at length within.
4
Sean Penn is buff and brooding in The Gunman, imbuing the international action-thriller with a self-seriousness that’s unearned and conflicts with the more sensational elements of the plot. A mature, serious actor transitioning to action hero has been hugely successful in the case of Liam Neeson, and this film attempts to recreate that while also positioning itself as a more cerebral shoot ‘em up. The strategy doesn’t work.
5.5
With a title like Zombeavers, there’s a certain lowered expectation associated with watching this kind of film, much like other purposefully campy creature features, such as Piranha 3D or Big Ass Spider. Indeed Jordan Rubin’s film is a silly gorefest, featuring giant, mutated versions of nature’s cute little rodent builders, but the fun takes a bit too long to get started.
6.5
Music is universal. It crosses borders. It breaks through language barriers. It creates a sense of community. One can get a sense of just how popular a style of music is just by looking at English-speaking artists who are selling out venues in foreign countries where English isn’t even the native language. It doesn’t matter if they don’t understand the words because the people like the sound, and somehow they connect with it.
4.5
Towards the end of Alonso’s latest affair of sweeping ambiguity, Jauja, there resides a character explaining a condition currently effecting a canine; a nervous reaction of sorts, a hot spot, brought about from the animal’s inability to understand something causing him to scratch himself furiously, irritating himself, injuring himself. This canine could easily be a representation of my own attempts at interpreting the ambiguity-rich quasi-narrative of Jauja, if only there was enough substance to warrant such sustained contemplation.
6.5
Being diagnosed with breast cancer is a devastating discovery, one that ignites a flurry of thoughts, a multitude of questions and concerns or it could elicit the opposite response - total shock shutdown. Either way, it’s an exhausting and emotionally draining existence in most cases as the person needs to deal with a number of issues that tag-along with a cancer diagnosis - questions regarding treatment options, medication and their side effects, surgeries, tests, work restrictions and so on. Now imagine during that initial flood of worries and what-ifs the first bit of follow-up news you receive is that the cancer has metastasized and it’s incurable.
6.5
God Bless the Child, or “Babysitting Simulator 2015” as I like to call it, is a minimalistic, home-movie-style film that – while featuring a thread-bare plot – packs a surprisingly strong emotional punch within its final five minutes. Similar to Alexandre Rockwell’s recent Little Feet, the film acts as a candid exploration of youth, starring five real-life siblings left to their own devices.
5
he emphasis in the title for A Space Program should be placed on the indefinite article. Despite the omnipresence of NASA branded materials, the outfit depicted in the film is definitely not “the” space program. It’s a fabricated collective staging a handmade journey to Mars. The environs of this space program are quite literally fabricated, built out of plywood, construction paper, and other materials. While the ambition and execution with the building and staging of the mission are immensely impressive, the movie that celebrates it doesn’t approach the same type of lo-fi grandeur.
7
Run All Night fully embraces established crime-drama tropes and makes little attempt at reinvention, which, in this case, is a good thing. There are certain rules in underworld revenge tales and they’re all laid out in the early going here. This is a case where director Jaume Collet-Serra and his solid cast know exactly what kind of movie they’re making and wring the best possible result out of familiar material. It’s elevation of pulpy drama via steady direction and committed actors, while abstaining from extraordinary or nonsensical twists that aggravate.
4
You have sex with someone; you contract herpes; and it’s yours forever. No matter where you go, no matter how far you try to get, it will always be with you, and, if you’re not careful, it can be passed on to the next person you have sex with. In some cases you may not know you’re infected until it’s too late. Horrifying notion isn’t it?
2
Adam Sandler’s filmography over the last decade or so has been a seemingly never-ending cavalcade of repugnant unfunny dreck, churned out on a yearly basis, much to the chagrin of critics everywhere. They all mostly follow the same crude, soul-crushing formula, but for some reason Sandler fans keep coming back for more. His latest venture, The Cobbler, may be a tough pill to swallow, however, even for the die-hards out there.
5
Within the first 10 minutes of Denny Tedesco’s music doc, The Wrecking Crew, it seemed like I was watching one of those Life Magazine infomercials for a music collection. I was being bombarded by bite-sized chunks of hits songs from the ’50s and ’60s, accompanied by low-res footage and ancient-looking interviews. After looking into the creation of the film, I learned that this was actually completed in 2008 and is just now being released in theaters and on VOD, due to licensing issues with the ridiculous number of pop songs featured in the film.
1
One may think starting a horror movie in the second act without any semblance of character introduction, plot setup or locale could be a novel idea – just drop the viewer in and away we go. Unfortunately, in the case of Muck, this method proves to be a terrible idea, one of many that plague this reprehensible excuse for a horror film.
2
Countless actors have profited through mean-spirited, ugly comedy. Few have fared as well as Vince Vaughn, whose reign atop the comedy throne has recently begun to falter. Though there is little one can say about his latest film, Unfinished Business, that is positive, at least there’s one sure good thing to come of it: this may be the final nail in the coffin of his current comedic career.
3
Neill Blomkamp was labeled by some as sci-fi’s next great visionary after 2009’s District 9. In his inspired debut, the filmmaker married metaphor with bloody mayhem and original special effects that perfectly communicated his vision of a lived-in, near-future dystopia. His anticipated sophomore feature Elysium was more of the same, only plagued with narrative bloat and a focus on spectacle, getting lost in the thicket of allegorical action.
