Insomnia is almost the ultimate film noir inverse, an argument supported strongest by its location – a small town in Alaska during the time of year in which it never gets dark, ever. In the noir films of the 1940s and 50’s, and even the majority of the neo-noirs produced in the decades following, high contrast […]
An all out digital assault on the senses, Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness is the most brazen and bizarre studio horror picture to come out for quite some time (and was punished for it, bombing at the box office earlier this year). It’s also one of the better films released in 2017 thus far, due in […]
“Don’t forget the importance of entertainment!” So says Paul (Michael Pitt) about halfway through Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (an American produced remake of his own 1997 original). It’s an important line, chiefly because what Funny Games serves up is something of an antidote for entertainment, rather than two hours of exhilarating horror. Although it is certainly horrifying, and one of the […]
A post-apocalyptic slow burn in which nightmare and reality collide, It Comes At Night follows a survivalist family of three as they attempt to isolate themselves and outlast a catastrophic plague that has seemingly taken millions of lives in the big cities, and then are joined (under interesting circumstances) by a second family of three. However, writer/director […]
A heartbreaking indictment of almost everyone in or around Amy Winehouse’s life, from family and friends who enabled (or encouraged) her in her addictions, to those who viewed her downward spiral as spectacle, and to the many of the associates in the music industry that pushed much harder for the bottom line than they did […]
One of the premier physical cinematic experiences, bar none. I can only imagine the added impact of seeing Aliens on the big screen. Comparing James Cameron’s sequel to its predecessor is akin to comparing apples and oranges. Aliens is a clever divergence from the cerebral, psychosexual, intimate horror of Ridley Scott’s original, with Cameron opting to not only widen […]
It took me some time to reconcile that, although serving as a series of prequels to the original quadrilogy, Ridley Scott’s latest two installments in the series he spawned almost 40-years ago are entirely their own saga, replete with their own, unique, preoccupations and focuses. Fans of the original series will be happy to know […]
Bringing Out the Dead is so similar to Martin Scorsese’s 1976 masterpiece Taxi Driver, so blatantly a spiritual successor, that the two should be required viewing as a double bill. Replacing Travis Bickle, the volatile, traumatized war veteran cab driver is Frank Pierce (Nicholas Cage), a third shift paramedic racing down the same streets that Bickle prowled after […]
In a studio climate where most of the output is polished and pressed for inoffensive and familiar, King Arthur feels like, at times, a breath of fresh air. I say, “at times” because much of the film is still mired in studio meddling and warring with its director, Guy Ritchie, whose knack for blue collar, cockney cool finds […]
After two Fleming-faithful Terence Young helmed pictures, director Guy Hamilton took over for 1964’s Goldfinger; which is perhaps the most acclaimed, and certainly the most influential, 007 film of all-time. With a substantially larger budget and director change, Goldfinger shaved away some of the harder thriller elements of Young’s films in favor of blockbuster spectacle, and under Hamilton’s […]
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