In 1958, an 11-year old kid in Scottsdale, Arizona borrowed his dad’s 8-mm movie camera to fulfill the requirements of the Boy Scouts’ photography merit badge. His first film was a western in which the big special effect was a staged crash of his Lionel model train set. He caught the filmmaking bug, and never [...]
Read MoreThere was a time when people thought Kevin Smith was going to change the face of movies as we know them. He didn’t, and as evidenced by his new film Red State, he never will.
Read MoreEven if you didn’t know that director Susanne Bier’s In a Better World had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, you’d at least be able to tell it was nominated. It’s gorgeously shot, deals with a timely topic in a thoughtful way, and gives you a teary but relatively happy ending.
Read MoreChameleon is the true story of one of the more famous criminal impersonators of recent times. Director Jean-Paul Salomé (there’s a name for you; perhaps he should direct a fictional mash-up between Oscar Wilde and Lou Salomé) obviously loves the story, keeping his camera tightly focussed on his actors, allowing them to carry the dramaturgy.
Read MoreMoon director Duncan Jones successfully segues into more ambitious sci-fi storytelling with Source Code, his slick, twisty sophomore effort that infuses a mind-bending premise with surprising emotional warmth courtesy of a cast featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga and Michelle Monaghan.
Read MoreAs if Bradley Cooper having smooth leading-man looks wasn’t bad enough, in Limitless, an average-person-becomes-super-smart flick a la The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes and Phenomenon, the guy has brawny brains, too, though to be fair, it’s a combination that helps make this slick and sleek sci-fi-ish thriller extremely entertaining to watch.
Read MoreI don’t care. I don’t care if every single aspect of the movie wasn’t A+. I don’t care if there were a few holes in the plot. I don’t care if, in real life, Matthew McConaughy played the bongos naked and smoked pot and the cops came. Because The Lincoln Lawyer was thoroughly entertaining, and [...]
Read MoreThat Insidious is a frightfully good horror film shouldn’t really come as a surprise. It was directed by James Wan, the Malaysian-born Australian behind the first Saw flick and the criminally underrated ventriloquist-dummy creepshow Dead Silence. Like those efforts, it employs an unusual plot device, refreshingly emphasizes mood over gore and ends with an exquisitely [...]
Read MoreIf ever a movie had a title that said it all, it would have to be Hobo with a Shotgun, an outrageously bloody and sadistic homage to action-exploitation flicks that gives Rutger Hauer his best role in years. The 67-year-old actor is perfectly cast, and looks like he’s having a blast (no pun intended) as [...]
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