Despite having a premise that would appear to push the high camp of this season even further, “Edward Mordrake (Part 1)” features some of the most touching and genuinely emotional moments seen in the season thus far. Though the elements of camp are certainly still present, “Mordrake” sees the season moving into more emotionally resonant territory.
The Judge is an actor’s showcase that gets lost in the weeds of tired family dynamics and clunky subplots. There are moments when Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall are allowed to take their characters into more dangerous places, but mostly they’re just constrained by an uninteresting story. The result is a film that packs no emotional wallop and builds to a conclusion that is neither surprising nor satisfying.
The Cabin in the Woods was the final frontier for slasher films… or at least it should have been. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s 2011 horror-comedy took all of the subgenre’s tropes and turned them on their head. It acknowledged every character stereotype and rejected each one. The slasher film received a complete deconstruction, and now it may be best to simply pack it away. Sadly, The Town That Dreaded Sundown heralds an uninspired return to form. It just may be the blandest movie to feature violent homicide and ruthless killers.
Dallas Buyers Club is an important film. Not because it tackles AIDS or bigotry or pharmaceutical companies or preservatives, although it does all that and more. It’s important because it shows one man who manages to overcome a 30-days left to live prognosis and makes a positive difference, all the while still being a real jerk, to put it politely. Based off of a true story, the material could have easily fallen into a Lifetime movie or docu-drama or a redemption story, but instead Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club is a compelling film about a real antihero, an alcohol and drug-abusing, flaming heterosexual Texan who contracts H.I.V. and lives to help himself and those around him, in that order.