November 6th, 2009 admin
1939
Starring: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton
Director: Victor Fleming
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Distributor: MGM
Rating: G
The fact that seventy years on this screen adaptation of perhaps America’s most celebrated fairytale has lost none of its power to enchant and astonish adults and children alike tells you everything. First published in 1900 by author L. Frank Baum The Wizard of Oz was greeted with Harry Potter like acclaim, spawning a subsequent thirteen more books, a stage musical, twenty-six unofficial stories, a television mini-series, and a dark as midnight 1985 sequel. Yet this 1939 production remains the definitive Oz experience, rediscovered with all its magical wonder by each new generation.
Few films have seared themselves into our collective consciousness and achieved such cultural iconography with such lasting impact. That it is so universally well received and remains so un-weathered by changing trends, shifting ideals, and new media is down to it’s many subtle layers. There are as many different ways to read The Wizard of Oz as there are yellow bricks in the road; it’s a fairytale; a musical; a coming-of-age story. It’s a social commentary on depression era America; a girl’s sexual awakening; The Odyssey for kids still learning to read.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Fantasy, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
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.
Posted in Feature Films, Horror, Reviews | No Comments »
October 26th, 2009 admin
2008
Starring:
Director(s): Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Disciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire
Runtime: 83 Minutes
Distributor: IFC Films
Rating: NR
Brought to us by the celebrated French graphic house and studio Prima Linea, Fear(s) of the Dark is an omnibus anthology of horror themed animation from some of the industry’s premier graphic designers, artist, and comic book creators. Five self-contained stories spliced up together, tied off by a recurring monologue, Fear(s) of the dark challenged six creative minds to animate the rhythm of the fears in the harsh extremities of black and white and the tonal subtleties that lay in-between.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Animation, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
October 25th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Michael Jai White, Eamonn Walker, Dante Basco, Michelle Belegrin, Nona Gaye, Julian Sands, Matt Mullins
Director: Ben Ramsey
Runtime: 93 Minutes
Distributor: Remarkable Films
Rating: R
Let’s be clear – Blood and Bone is an above average MMA beat-em-up flick. But since that’s a genre that right now encompasses a whopping six, perhaps even seven films, that’s not really saying much. Blood and Bone is the kind of film where characters say lines like: You had my friend Johnny murdered in prison, after you sent him there for a crime he didn’t commit.”; where illegal bare knuckle brawls take place in inner-city parking lots close to busy intersections; where groups of heavy set gentlemen covered in ink and decked out in bling swagger around wearing sunglasses at night.
Into this neon drenched arena steps Bone (Michael Jai White of Spawn fame, also producing), a stoically badass fighter freshly released from prison and on a mission to avenge his friend’s death and rescue his loved ones from under the boot of local kingpin James (Eamonn Walker, slapping the scenery between two hunks of bread and taking a gigantic bite). The international underground street fighting business, so we’re told, is the biggest moneymaking fight game, period. Of course the idea of a black man being in charge of something that lucrative is just absurd. So enter Julian Sands (further confirming his status as quite possibly the worst actor of all time) as James’ boss, head of a cabal of gamblers who leech off of the profits from their prizefighter, Price (Matt Mullins), a $5 million a head. James wants Bone to fight him, but Bone has ideas all of his own.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Action/Adventure, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
October 25th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Louis C.K. Jeffrey Tambor, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Jason Bateman, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Director: Rickey Gervais and Matthew Robinson
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating PG-13
While this broadly drawn rom com with added gimmick is far from the most inspired concept – its little more than a reverse Liar Liar and something that ten years ago would have surely been earmarked as a throwaway vehicle for Jim Carey – it does serve to highlight just how much a comedy script can benefit from being written with a specific comedian in mind. Set in a world identical to our own where no one ever lies, The Invention of Lying is tailor-made for Ricky Gervais, literally, with Gervais having purchased the concept from debutant Matthew Robinson before retooling it to suit his comic style and delivery.
So while the actor and material are in perfect sync, the flipside is that the move has been tailor-made for Ricky Gervais. So if that particular brand of embarrassment comedy leaves you cold, or the trademark unfinished sentences punctuated by that exasperated sigh drive you crazy, then don’t even bother. It’s also a film of two halves, but we’ll get to that later.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Comedy/Romance, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
October 16th, 2009 admin
2008
Starring: Hilmir Snær Guớnason, Margarét Vilhjálmsdóttir, Laufey Elìasdóttir, Ólafìa Hrönn Jónsdóttir
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Runtime: 96 Minutes
Distributor: IFC Films
Rating: NR
Being recognized internationally as the best in a particular field that your country has to offer is certainly impressive. That said, director Baltasar Kormákur being hailed as the finest filmmaker in all of Iceland still feels a little bit like congratulating the world’s tallest midget. So while this sour Icelandic romantic comedy carries with it the prestige of having served as that countries official entry into the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Feature, it doesn’t necessarily indicate the same level of quality assured were that country say Brazil, or Korea.
Taking on the tiny island community of Flatley off the northern coast, White Night Wedding is a loose riff on Chekov’s Ivanov. With an added dash of quirk this is a bittersweet dramady that, as the title might suggest, takes in a chaotic 24 hours leading up to the ceremony during midsummer night when the Arctic sun never sets. In terms of an American reference, the overall tone of White Night Wedding could most accurately be compared to the films of indie helmer Noah Baumbach, with Kormákur mining great comedy out of such staples as guilt, familial resentment, and spousal insecurity.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Comedy/Romance, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
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.
Posted in Feature Films, Horror, Reviews | No Comments »
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.
Posted in Feature Films, Horror, Reviews | No Comments »
September 29th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Melanie Lynskey, Allan Havey, Tom Papa, Eddie Jemison
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Runtime: 108 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: R
Steven Soderbergh is not a director you would instinctively associate with comedy, having made his name with a low-key indie and then cemented it with a series of weighty, worthy dramas. Yes, he made the Ocean’s series, but those films were really more fun than they were funny. Similarly Matt Damon is an actor that outside of that series has gravitated towards roles that call for wounded intensity, with the likes of The Good Shepherd and The Bourne franchise. In fact on paper this farcical caricature of corporate whistleblower Mark Whitacre (Damon) is kind of bizarre blend of absurdity and banality you would normally expect to see delivered by the Coen Bros and starring John Tuturro.
This perhaps goes some way towards explaining that while the Informant! has great style and zips along at a fair old pace, propelled by a commanding performance from Damon, it never really hits its comic stride. Based on the tell-all book of the same title from author Kurt Eichenwald (not a comedy – the ! was something scripter Scott Burns added), The Informant! tells the story of the Lysine (a key additive in animal feed) Price Fixing Scandal, and the resulting three year FBI investigation that resulted in what was then a record amount in corporate fines. It was an investigation marred by the fact that their star witness, Whitacre, was in fact embezzling millions of dollars from the company while he was effectively working undercover for the Feds.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Comedy/Romance, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »