Released on Blu-ray and DVD this week is the Sundance hit turned Oscar darling, Whiplash. While it missed awards for the top categories, J.K. Simmons took a statue home for his turn as the overbearing jazz conductor, Terence Fletcher; Tom Cross nabbed one for his flashy editing; and Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, and Thomas Curley […]
Not to be confused with The Who album or movie adaptation, 2014’s Tommy is a Swedish crime thriller from the growing Nordic Noir genre: a grim drama set in the underworld of Stockholm. Estelle (Moa Gammel) returns to Stockholm after living in hiding in Sri Lanka for a year. Her mission is to claim her […]
Ah, yes. The high school romantic comedy. Or, the teen movie. While there are few that occasionally manage to diverge from the norm, most tend to be as formulaic as they come. The DUFF is no exception. You would not need to go far to guess what this movie would be about: a girl who […]
Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement have teamed up once again to bring the world an unquestionably unique, and entirely spellbinding comedy. What We Do in the Shadows is a vivid mockery of the current vampire obsession in film, television, and literature. Taking vampirism to its real-world conclusion, Clement and Waititi exploit the mythology and popular […]
Words like “mesmerizing” and “exquisite” seem ill-chosen when used to describe a black comedy, but in the case of Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure, they are required vocabulary. Unexpected twists lie around every corner – a wailing Russian Bayan bawls Vivaldi’s “RV 315 Presto” heightening the overall sense of unease, and brings a hidden malevolence to […]
Based on a series of novels that is itself based on Twilight fan-fiction, the movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey is set to bring BDSM to the masses: in the most dull way possible. Anastasia “Ana” Steele (Dakota Johnson) is a shy, quiet, sexually inexperienced literature student who is about to graduate university. She […]
A colorful, quirky twist on the psychological horror genre, The Voices employs Marjane Satrapi’s unique perspective, and prodigious talent to deliver a wholly entertaining, and delightfully creepy film. A fun, yet uneven script keeps the audience off balance, while the surprisingly charismatic Ryan Reynolds lures them in for a closer look. Packed with visual cues […]
The Wachowskis have written and directed a total of five movies in the intervening years since The Matrix changed the face of the Hollywood action blockbuster. This is perhaps a cause for concern to some when, in the trailer for their newest sci-fi/fantasy action flick Jupiter Ascending, the studios still insist on boasting “From the […]
One could probably tell from any trailer or TV spot that this film would probably not be superb epic fantasy in the vein of The Lord of the Rings or even the Harry Potter films, which are probably the gold standard for films based on books of the fantasy/YA genre. At the very least, one […]
From the “letter to the editor” at the onset of Wetlands, director David Wnendt sets the tone for the depravity to come. Subverting genre stereotypes, modern hygienic practices, and common decency, Wetlands blends its crude, gross-out humor with a delicately sweet seriousness, deafening the shock of the first exposition shots, and lending gravity to the […]
