As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up. Enjoy! **** 150: Session 9 Directed by Brad Anderson Written by Stephen Gevedon …
This week brought us another update on the Richard Jewell thriller that would reportedly re-team Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill following their work together on The Wolf of Wall Street. Deadline is reporting that Clint Eastwood is now circling the project. Jewell was a police officer who discovered a backpack with a bomb inside at …
On the face of it, 2014 has been a rather strange year for film, a step down from an annum of classics and simultaneously a slalom dodge into the realms of adventure and discord. Here I take a look at five movies and the four lessons they taught us in 2014, for better or for worse.
Of course, Guardians isn’t perfect, as it struggles to find a consistent tone. Sometimes it wants to be more adult, with bawdier language and sexual innuendo. For instance, Quill’s rumination that “If I had a black light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting!” is pretty sophisticated for mainstream PG-13 fare. Other times, it feels as though the filmmakers are pandering to a much younger audience. You can almost visualize a ‘Dancing Groot’ doll gyrating in your kid’s Happy Meal.
For every good sequence, there’s one that’s muddled with bad camerawork and editing. Like a lot of blockbuster action, it’s barely legible; you have to work to keep up with it, and that work interferes with the enjoyment. The story also sags in the middle, as it seems to exist mainly to fill out the run-time. The protagonists take the MacGuffin to a dude they wish to sell it to, but the only real function of the section is to exposit what it is. It turns a big chunk of the plot into a shrug.
With Iron Man 3 recently hitting the box office in big way, and Man of Steel and The Wolverine quickly on their way, it’s hard for one’s attention not to be firmly set to the pending comic book movies that we’re more than happy to accept with open arms into our wallets. As much as we as viewers, though, love …
Guardians of the Galaxy Issue #1 Written by Brian Michael Bendis Penciller: Steve McNiven Cover by Steve McNiven, John Dell, & Justin Ponsor Publisher: Marvel Brian Michael Bendis’ much anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy, the newest of the Marvel Now! relaunches, proves just how great obscurity can be. How great is the comic exactly? Using …
Movie anthologies have seen a rise in recent years, with several filmmakers collaborating on a series of short films, often with a common theme running through them, such as all being set in the same city, or all belonging to the same genre. The latest addition to this entry is Movie 43, which features a …
Many film websites published “decade’s best horror films” lists in late 2009/early 2010. While these lists collectively provided a rough snapshot of the genre’s ups and downs during that time, with more time to reflect, it becomes increasingly clear what an important period the 2000’s were for the horror genre on a global scale. Not …
Slither Directed by James Gunn Written by James Gunn 2006, USA Gross-out horror comedy is my guilty pleasure. Among the best are Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator, and James Gunn’s Slither. Essentially a pastiche of the zombie and alien-invasion genres, Slither features a 50’s sci-fi plot with gross-out gore making for an …
“Super is a twisted, semi-schizophrenic cult classic in the making…” Super Directed by James Gunn Written by James Gunn 2010, USA Super embraces pretty much all the bearings of the “everyman turned superhero” concept; its tropes include the obligatory costumed hero (minus an obligatory tragic origin story), the attractive damsel in distress, a heartless villain, …