There are moments of Interstellar that are outstanding. It is visually stunning. It has a breathtaking vision of space, grounded by actual astrophysics (theoretically, sort of), which gets writ large across a gritty film landscape that manages to evoke classic science fiction movies while also featuring stunning graphics. And the simplified plot – man goes […]
JC Chandor may be a new name to a lot of people, but he is single handedly pushing and re-inventing acting led dramatic films. Within the last three years Chandor has explored the recent financial crash, one man’s struggle with the tempestuous sea and himself, and the heating oil business of 1981, one of the […]
Part Taxi Driver, Part American Psycho, entirely a biting satire of the modern entertainment complex. Nightcrawler may sound like an X-Men spin off but it’s actually a fascinating spin down the rabbit hole of our modern news landscape, and an interesting twist on the antihero genre. I don’t want to spoil the journey I went […]
In a lot of ways, Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a creatively masturbatory exercise in pretension. It may also be brilliant. Just look at that damn title! Uselessly subtitled, with inexplicable punctuation. It begs you to take it seriously, while creating just enough of a wink to pretend its better than such […]
I was skeptical, at first, about this dystopian Noah’s Ark adapted from a French graphic novel and starring Captain America (forgive the unfairly depreciative evocation; I’ve always liked Chris Evans and know full well that most of the major superheroes right now are actually pretty good actors, but you know what I mean). The first […]
This is a Cabin in the Woods-type movie. I don’t mean a riveting and inventive take on the horror genre (though it is, in some ways, that too; sort of), I mean that to reveal the full premise of this film is to undermine the experience of it. So I’m going to be coy about […]
About a year ago I read the Gillian Flynn book “Gone Girl.” Every year I try I to read a book that is going to be made into either a television series or film, I am a nerd who likes to compare source material, and see if the auteur “gets” the source material. Sometime it’s […]
The Skeleton Twins is both incredibly witty, heartbreaking, and one of my favorite films of the Year, so far! If you asked me over the years which generation of Saturday Night Live performers would have the best careers, I probably would have said the Will Ferrell/Molly Shannon crowd. Through my personal experience I never found […]