The Road

Movies can be different, but they can also be very similar. There’s nothing wrong with being similar, but sometimes a trend develops within film that is not a positive. Twists are such a trend, a trope of the horror genre that has been running amok in the genre for years now. That’s not to say that all twists are inherently negative. However, when the twist overtakes the film and works against what came before the twist, well, that’s a problem.

In his later years, the novelist Cormac McCarthy has circled like a vulture around the theme of death, specifically its inevitable grip on humanity. No Country for Old Men and The Road presented very different worlds, both filled with men trying desperately to withstand the inexorable hand of the reaper, and eventually realizing that there wasn’t much left but to give into what comes for us all. Such an existential fear is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the foundation of McCarthy’s newest foray, his screenplay for the crime thriller The Counselor. Its director is the prolific Ridley Scott, and its cast is impressively stacked, but this is a McCarthy story through and through, which is mostly heartening news.

134- Birth (2004) Directed by Jonathan Glazer Genre: Drama A stylistically bold movie that combines the surrealist work of Luis Buñuel while evoking the austere technical mastery of Stanley Kubrick, Birth is visually dazzling, always unpredictable and features lingering performances by Nicole Kidman and 11-year-old Canadian actor Cameron Bright. Coupled with an intriguing premise about …

69 – A Serious Man (2009) Directed by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen Genre: Drama, Dark Comedy Blending dark humor with profoundly personal themes, The Coen Brothers deliver their most intimate film yet. Expanding upon some of the themes they’ve played with in the past, the film deals with everything from man’s search for meaning, …

69 – A Serious Man (2009) Directed by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen Genre: Drama, Dark Comedy Blending dark humor with profoundly personal themes, The Coen Brothers deliver their most intimate film yet. Expanding upon some of the themes they’ve played with in the past, the film deals with everything from man’s search for meaning, …

The Road Directed by John Hillcoat For fans of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road,  the novel’s journey from page to screen has been almost as harrowing as the one endured by the book’s protagonists. Delayed by over a year due to unspecified wrangling within the temple of Miramax, this grim, biblical parable is finally seeing the light of day …

Dimension Films, The Weinstein Company, and 2929 Productions present The Road, a film by John Hillcoat. Based upon the acclaimed novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy and adapted by Joe Penhall, The Road stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee with notable names in supporting performances given by Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, and Charlize …

Originally Posted in Creative Loafing. With the loud, dumb and often-disappointing summer movie season behind us, I go into fall with some optimism. There’s a good amount of work by reliable writers and filmmakers, which gives the season a lot of potential. And it’s our first bombardment of Oscar Bait, with many of the titles …

Originally Posted in Creative Loafing. 2009 is already halfway over, and the fall movie season (with all the originality and Oscar-bait it has to offer) is just around the corner. What follows is my list of the 25 films I’m most interested in seeing in the second half of 2009. Read all the way to …