Tag Archive AFI Fest

7.5

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR Review

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

In Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III, Michael Corleone succinctly sums up how hard it is for a criminal to go legit. No matter how hard you try to escape that world, it will always be over your shoulder. In that sweeping crime saga, audiences knew what Corleone was involved in and can easily understand how hard it is to gain legitimacy. However, what if you were never in it in the first place and were merely guilty by association? That is just one dilemma of many that writer/director J.C. Chandor explores in his understated yet potent crime drama, A Most Violent Year.

7

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT Review

Possibly one of the most harrowing life experiences is having to face is the fear of being laid off. There is a dark cloud that hovers over you as you are left to ponder just what will happen and just what exactly the future has in store. There are many reasons an owner might lay off staff. Business is bad. Performance issues. Seasonal work has dried up. Keeping the employee would prevent others from receiving annual bonuses. (Wait, what?) But that is just the situation that the Dardenne brothers look at in their latest film, Two Days, One Night.

4

STILL ALICE Review

Films about debilitating diseases can be uplifting like The Theory of Everything, sentimental like The Notebook, unexpected like Amour or surprisingly funny like The Intouchables. Some films put the disease front and center while others treat it as part of a character. How the film handles and tackles the drama surrounding the disease can make or break it. The latest film from the directing team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Still Alice, is a film that looks at Alzheimer’s Disease, and unlike the aforementioned films, it never rises above being a heavy-handed “disease-of-the-week” TV movie.

3.5

AFI Fest 2013: THE GREEN INFERNO Review

DIRECTED by: Eli Roth                                                                      Film Pulse Score: 3.5/10

With Cabin Fever and Hostel, writer-director Eli Roth made an auspicious debut and left an indelible mark on the horror genre.   His films had