Sometimes the determination between an actor’s successful and unsuccessful work comes down to context, like the ensemble of actors surrounding them, and sometimes it’s about the writing. But some movie stars simply ‘are,’ and one responds to their presence. We tend to value physical manifestations of…
One baffling segment in BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry sees the Thai version of Japanese girl group AKB48’s “Koisuru Fortune Cookie” — one of the most popular J-pop singles released this decade — being regarded as a potential flop by some members of BNK48, the Thai branch of…
Stephen King adaptations are as popular and generic as ever, despite claims of some kind of renaissance, and this latest iteration of Pet Sematary is hardly an exception. Based very loosely on one of King’s most idiosyncratic and melodramatic novels, this is more of a clumsy remake…
Perhaps setting itself up as a corrective to the rest of the DC comics films, which are apparently perceived to be overly dark and serious, Shazam! [sic] is more kid-friendly fare, what with its host of adolescent characters, its good-natured it’s-about-family moralizing, and its relatively…
The Dirt is a terrible movie. Adapted from Mötley Crüe’s group-authored autobiography of the same name, Jeff Tremaine’s film is This Is Spinal Tap without the self-aware irony, a biopic that stumbles into every cliché that Walk Hard skewered over a decade ago. The actors playing Nikki Sixx…
Released in 1967, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie & Clyde was the New Hollywood urtext: young, sexy, fast, and violent. It’s impossible to view The Highwaymen as anything but a purposeful riposte to that earlier film — a stodgy, old fashioned, purportedly ‘true story’ of the lawmen that gunned…
The 48th edition of New Directors/New Films runs March 27th – April 7th. Here’s our first dispatch. Included — very much intentionally — in our second and final dispatch from the fest is a film that isn’t actually playing the fest at all, at least not…
It seems natural to react with bewildered laughter when watching Scanners. The sight of actors contorting themselves with pained screams and Dick Smith’s visceral special effects work conjoin to present moments so vigorous, so carnal, the viewer often has to expel some kind of emotion…
The 48th edition of New Directors/New Films runs March 27th – April 7th. For our first of two dispatches, we tackle the second feature from Canadian filmmaker Philippe Lesage (Genesis); a “deceptively minimalist” debut from a Mexican actress-turned-filmmaker (The Chambermaid); a Turkish love story spun on its…
Modestly assembled and expertly executed, David Wenham’s delightful debut feature Ellipsis conjures those occasions when human connection comes calling, often in spite of some general apathy. Employing a style of narrative popularized by Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, the actor-turned-director’s serendipitous romance is the story of…