There are, alas, all manner of bad movies out there. The ones that are so bad that they’re good. The ones that are so bad that they are a tedious slog designed to quell the will to live among its viewers. The ones that start out offensive and then escalate their assault on their audiences… Read More »
PRESSURE
The trick in making a film where the outcome is well known is to make what leads up to that outcome as suspenseful as a surprise ending would have been. PRESSURE is a sterling example of how that is done. Based on a true story, it is a lesser-known story of D-Day in which we… Read More »
OBSESSION
The familiar theme in OBSESSION is given a bracing re-boot by filmmaker Curry Barker. While the narrative addresses the oft considered dangers of getting exactly what you wish for, the subtext, that bursts through with the force of a spurting aorta, deals firmly with the insidious nature of male toxicity, female objectification, and what happens… Read More »
OVER YOUR DEAD BODY
Click here for the flashback interview with Jason Segel and James Ponsoldt for THE END OF THE TOUR. OVER YOUR DEAD BODY is a bristling black comedy that perfectly balances the genuine terror of psychopaths on the loose with the tragedy of a marriage gone very, very bad. And makes them both hilarious. Not an… Read More »
NORMAL
Bob Odenkirk has slipped comfortably into the category of unlikely action hero. Just an ordinary guy who, when thrown into extraordinary circumstances, rises to the occasion with a deadpan quip and a lethal ability to stay alive. And so it is with NORMAL, his follow-up to NOBODY and NOBODY 2, wherein he essays Ulysses, a… Read More »
LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY
It is only fair to give Lee Cronin points for wanting to expand the horizons of what a horror film about a mummy can be, but in LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY, that is pretty much the where originality ends. This overlong and gore-drenched exercise has a slap-dash quality to its writing coupled with putatively intelligent… Read More »
PROJECT HAIL MARY
Every now and then I want to say “Just go see this film” and let the discovery of each revelation be the adventure it was meant to be. PROJECT HAIL MARY, based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, presents that problem. If you want my advice, then suffice to say that this life-and-death… Read More »
PILLION
In PILLION, we learn a great deal about gay biker culture in the UK. This is to be expected in a film wherein a sweet man (Harry Melling) discovers a side of himself he never suspected after falling under the commanding spell of one of those ci-mentioned bikers (Alexander Skarsgård). What is unexpected is discovering… Read More »
SEND HELP
The fruits of entitlement face off with workers controlling the means of production in Sam Raimi’s scathingly brilliant, and wickedly funny, take on gender politics and economic power, SEND HELP. Sure, we’ve seen this scenario before in THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, SWEPT AWAY (the Wertmuller version, please), and most recently in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, which owes… Read More »
CRIME 101
Click here for the flashback interview with Bart Layton for AMERICAN ANIMALS. Sometimes an ending can make or break a film. And so it is with CRIME 101, a thoughtful meditation on what happens when following the rules just doesn’t pay off. The payoff to a narrative that could have used some tightening is not… Read More »