October 30th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Director: Lars Von Trier
Runtime: 104 Minutes
Distributor: IFC Films
Rating: R
It’s a common misconception that Danish director Lars Von Trier cares what people think – he doesn’t. For evidence of that you need look no further than the press conference immediately following Antichrist’s Cannes unveiling during which one puffed-up twerp representing the reactionary British rag The Daily Mail demanded Von Trier “Justify it!” to which the diminutive Dane flatly replied: “You are all my guests. It is not the other way around.”
In fact, given his notoriously mischievous nature and his love/hate relationship with critics who exhaustively try to derive meaning from his various artistic whims, it is entirely possibly that he’s just having a right royal giggle at our collective expense. Von Trier has even been known to remark with a chuckle that he simply tells the same story about an ill-fated femme doomed to ignominy by a misguided man over and over in a variety of different genres. Antichrist, if you haven’t guessed by the title, is a horror film.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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October 13th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue, Cung Le, Eddie Rouse
Director: Christian Alvart
Runtime: 108 Minutes
Distributor: Overture Films
Rating: R
The sophomore English language feature from German director Christian Alvart, Pandorum is essentially a haunted house movie in space. US audiences are yet to see Alvart’s first picture, the psychological horror-cum-creepy kid movie Case 39, although given the write-ups it’s received over in Europe that’s probably a good thing. Displaying a deft hand at ratcheting up some tension and superior ability when it comes to moving the camera around, Alvart’s picture is hamstrung by a woefully weak script and a novelty plot device kicking things off that only serves to undermine everything else he subsequently tries to do. There is also more than a hint of Event Horizon about the place, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that a scan of the credits reveals Paul W. S. “everything I touch turns to ash” Anderson on board as producer, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why this high-concept deep space chiller is so painfully derivative.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Feature Films, Horror, Reviews, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
October 13th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, Kyle Gallner, J.K. Simmons
Director: Karyn Kusama
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Rating: R
Juno might have earned Diablo Cody both a Best Screenplay Oscar and anointment to the position of the next big indie darling, but its wearily hip teen speak dialogue also irritated enough critics to ensure that her follow up would be heralded by the mass collective sharpening of critical knives. In terms of vindication for Cody and her unique sense of character, the Megan Fox fronted Jennifer’s Body is a big thumbs down. In terms of the overall movie, it does work on a couple of levels – assuming no one in the audience has ever seen or heard of Heathers, Ginger Snaps, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, or any other deeply ironic horror-cum-comedy allegorizing teen angst from the last twenty years.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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October 1st, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Michael Bowen, Candice Accola, Andrew DiPalma, Eric Podnar, Jenny Spain
Director: Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel
Runtime: 101 Minutes
Distributor: Dark Sky Films
Rating: R
Drawing from a broad range of influences the likes of Boxing Helena, Antom Egoyan, the collective works of David Cronenberg, this dirty micro-budgeted little nasty comes frontloaded with a provocative squirm-inducing premise that will no doubt drive strong ancillary business. But randy adolescents open for a thinly veiled skin flick will be largely disappointed. Similarly those sick to the back teeth of torture porn would do well not to dismiss this as just another bandwagoner, as co-directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel have far more on their minds here than simply mining a gimmick for the purposes of titillation.
Penned by bit-part-actor-turned-screenwriter Trent Haaga, a man with a long and undistinguished career acting in the realm of DTV horror, Deadgirl sketches out an eerily plausible portrait of horny adolescent maledom taken to its grim but logical conclusion. Skipping out on class for the afternoon highschool misfit Rickie (Fernandez) who is nursing a crush of the beautiful, popular JoAnn (Accola), and his equally ostracized buddy J.T. (Segan) head off to the abandoned hospital (as one does) to drink a little beer and indulge in a little petty vandalism because, hey, it’s what they know.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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June 8th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Reggie Lee
Director: Sam Raimi
Runtime: 99 Minutes
Distributor: Ghost House Pictures
Rating: PG-13
While we sadly continue to dance the sorry dance of one-step forward, two back in terms of social progress in this country, it’s nice for a film to come along every once in a while to remind us that it ain’t as bad as it used to be. Had this film arrived twenty years ago like, I don’t know, Evil Dead maybe, this wouldn’t so much have been banned as sealed in concrete, sent into space and shot into the center of the sun. Of course these days you really have to gruesomely and explicitly torture the shit out of somebody for some considerable amount of time to earn the dreaded NC-17 (or alternatively you can just show a glimpse of a woman’s pubic hair), so PG-13 it is. But as family friendly as a film like Drag Me To Hell might first appear, do not under any circumstances take your spotty, pubescent little Herbert to see this picture as it could, in all likelihood, fuck him up a little bit.
In the first film from Ghost House Pictures to actually be directed by the boss, master of all things gory and gross, director Sam Raimi makes his long-awaited return to the genre that made him both famous and infamous back in the eighties. A nice side benefit from the PG-13 tag is the opportunity for Raimi to re-introduce himself to those splatter-happy teenagers who are too young to remember his glory days and best know this filmmaker as the guy who made Spiderman a whiney emo bitch.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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November 20th, 2008 admin
Having suffered the indignity of being made to run around after Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie while they showcased their “talent” on TV’s The Simple Life, unit producer Jeff Fisher conceived a story telling of a pampered LA rich bitch who winds up in a backwater Dakota town and is pursued by a vicious serial killer. Amazing how ideas sometimes just come to you.
Click here to read the full review at Suite101.com.
Posted in Comedy/Romance, Drama, Feature Films, Horror, Reviews | No Comments »
October 29th, 2008 admin
2008
Starring: Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, Odette Yustman, Mike Vogel, T. J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David
Director: Matt Reeves
Runtime: 85 minutes
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Rating: PG-13
Ever since audiences first got a taste of this gritty monster movie, by way of a mysterious clip of handheld camcorder footage that saw the statue of liberty’s tossed down a New York street like a bowling ball, a swell of anticipation began to build around its release. Producer JJ Abrahms and his team managed to orchestrate one of the most successful and widespread underground marketing campaigns via the Internet the likes of which hadn’t been seen since The Blair Witch Project. Word of mouth exploded and speculation as to what exactly this thing attacking New York was ranged from an unannounced Godzilla sequel to the smoke monster from Lost loose from the island.
After such gigantic buzz it was fair to expect that the film itself would be hard pressed to deliver on the expectations and the self-induced hype on the part of the viewer. Unsurprisingly, the final product, while certainly entertaining, is a little bit of a letdown. Shot entirely from direct POV through a camcorder, the film goes directly for the jugular of an America still somewhat wading through the hazy fog of post 9/11 paranoia where anything can happen to anyone at anytime. So with that in mind the camcorder is first switched on to record a going away party for Rob, organized by his brother Jason and his best friends Hud (our cameraman) and Lily. When the full swing celebrations are interrupted by a series of loud explosions and burning chunks of buildings flying through the streets, you cannot help but get a sick sense of déjà vu as images of the World Trade Center immediately come rushing to the front of your mind.
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October 28th, 2008 admin
2007
Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Harney, Laz Alonso, Chrysta Olsen
Director: Roland Joffe
Runtime 96 Minutes
Distributor: Lionsgate
Rating: R
After courting much controversy with a poster ad campaign that was deemed offensive by more than a few, this latest in a sub-genre suffering heavily from diminishing returns and market saturation initially offered itself up on Harry Potter weekend as an “alternative.” Well it certainly is all that and more. Elisha Cuthbert continues to choose disastrous lowbrow vehicles that don’t require her to be much more than the pouting damsel in distress in a tight vest that she perfected on 24. Captivity is intriguing for the simple fact that almost every single negative adjective in the English language can accurately be applied to one or more parts of it. Really, watch it and see. We defy you to find a bad word that can’t be said about this film.
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September 13th, 2008 admin
1996
Starring: George Clooney, Harvey Kietel, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Ernest Liu, Selma Hayek
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Runtime: 108 minutes
Distributor: Miramax
Rating: R
Initially a box office flop, this unashamedly ludicrous B movie homage found some legs on VHS and scored big for several involved. It cemented Robert Rodriguez as a genuine talent, showing his hard-hitting indie debut El Mariachi was no fluke. It also showcased Quentin Tarantrino’s amazing knack for throwaway dialogue made instantly quotable and reaffirmed that he should most definitely stop taking acting roles in his films. Chiefly, it was a breakout performance for George Clooney, giving him a good reputation as a guy that can carry films as well as TV shows about hospitals – a reputation he almost ruined a year later with his awful turn in Batman & Robin, but that is another story.
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September 11th, 2008 admin
2007
Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Sali Richardson, Willow Smith, Dash Mihok
Director: Francis Lawrence
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros
Rating: PG-13
Fair play to Will Smith for trying to stretch his acting chops in recent years. Post Bad Boys II Smith took off in a different direction, trying his hand at some softer roles which went beyond his accepted mastery of the word “Damn!” A generally well received performance in the much overlooked Hitch, followed by an Oscar nominated turn in The Pursuit of Happiness found Smith at something of a career crossroads. Clocking up his 40th birthday next year and with the prospect of a big budget Men In Black III being tossed around by Warner Bros, Smith has some choices to make. Does he go the Tom Hanks route and turn away from the kind of material that made him and stick with emotionally heavy Oscar pictures, or does he return to his comfort zone and his patented ‘WillSmithisms?’
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